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Embracing the “Two-Body Problem”: The Case of Partnered Academics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2015

Cynthia D. Fisher
Cynthia D. Fisher*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Business, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cynthia D. Fisher, Faculty of Business, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland 4229, Australia. E-mail: cynthia_fisher@bond.edu.au
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Extract

The focal article has given examples of children, other relatives, and friends as potential beneficiaries of preferential treatment and has discussed the counterbalancing likelihood of organizational gain from (properly) employing individuals who already share social connections. Surprisingly, there is minimal mention of spouses or domestic partners. From the 1970s through the 1990s, a number of articles were published on the legal and practical issues of applying antinepotism policies to spouses, but since 2000, the literature has been almost entirely silent. This is surprising given that, in 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 47.4% of U.S. families involve husbands and wives who both work.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 13 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

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