Many scientists at top US institutions have had fewer children than they wanted as a result of their careers, according to a new study.
Nearly half of all female scientists and a quarter of male scientists said they would have liked more children — and a quarter of both women and men said they are likely to consider moving to a career outside science as a result.
Sociologists Elaine Howard Ecklund from Rice University and Anne Lincoln from Southern Methodist University surveyed 2,500 scientists at more than 30 leading universities in the United States for the study, which was published last week in PLoS ONE.
The survey showed that 36 percent of male postdocs and 22 percent of female postdocs had children, rising to 75 percent of male faculty members and 64 percent of female faculty members. Female faculty members had fewer children on average than their male colleagues — 1.2 children for women versus 1.5 for men.
Despite women being more likely to have wanted more children, men were unhappier about having fewer children than desired. Both men and women with children worked fewer hours than those without children. However, contrary to the researchers’ expectations, women with children worked the same number of hours as men with children — approximately 54 hours a week on average.
“Academic science careers are tough on family life,” says Ecklund, citing long hours and the pressures of working towards tenure as the main pressure points. She and Lincoln suggest on-site day care and improved mentoring programmes may help improve scientists’ work-life balance. “Universities would do well to re-evaluate how family-friendly their policies are,” says Ecklund.
What’s your reaction? Are you putting off having children as a result of your career? Is the situation similar outside the United States? Share your thoughts below.
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This is definitely an example of a blogpost where I would reply in more detail if it were possible to comment anonymously!
My move away from bench research was related to the fact that I wanted to have a child.
However, the people in my lab who did have children seemed to be very happy, and it did not seem to hold them back in terms of progressing, but I suppose radiochemistry is (on average) a slightly less time-demanding field of research.
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Its very interesting that in America people are having less childern due to pressure in science career where all the facilities are available at door step. In the developing world the situation is worst than this. Here people first try to get scholarships for getting higher degrees in science as they cant afford their studies by themselves. They spend number of years outside their family even their country, and when get back they cant adjust themselves very well as they cant find all the facilities needed to continue growing in their career. They have pressure on them form both the employer and family, and ultimately many of them decide not to get married at all. I personally few cases in one of the leading university of Pakistan where the top scientists with number of publications and awards in science are living bachelor life and are heading to the end of their lives. Their social life is almost ceased and their family ties are very week. I personally could not leave for my parents
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My husband and I are both 33 year-old Canadian post-docs. My husband does not want to consider having children until he has secured a more permanent position (i.e. academic faculty). Although I will not likely pursue a faculty position, this situation definitely has me looking at the potential for motherhood much later (if at all) than I would have chosen if this were not the case.
I am interested in hearing related stories from other couples both actively involved in research. Do the results from the above-mentioned study account for whether the spouses of the scientists surveyed were also in research? Certainly, the results mentioned are not all that surprising, although the fact that both men and women with children keep similar hours on average should be good news to PI’s. Either way, 54 hours a week leaves precious few waking hours for spending time raising a family!
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Its very interesting that in American people are having less childern due to pressure in science career where all the facilities are available at door step. In the developing world the situation is worst than this. Here people first try to get scholarships for getting higher degrees in science as they cant afford their studies by themselves. They spend number of years outside their family even their country, and when get back they cant adjust themselves very well as they cant find all the facilities needed to continue growing in their career. They have pressure on them form both the employer and family, and ultimately many of them decide not to get married at all. I personally few cases in one of the leading university of Pakistan where the top scientists with number of publications and awards in science are living bachelor life and are heading to the end of their lives. Their social life is almost ceased and their family ties are very week. Amongst the married majority has one or two kids and i think if such survey is conducted here the results will be not much different than that of America or other advanced coutries.
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My husband are are also both 33 year old post-docs, with one 2 1/2 year old son and another on the way. I am definitely not pursuing tenure-track positions, because I want to be the primary caregiver to my children. I plan on working, but either on the bench or off the bench is something that will be determined by where my husband gets his tenure-track position. On-site daycare would be great, but the bottom line is that I don’t want to spend 10-12 hours a day away from my kid(s), so I don’t think the faculty track is for me.