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[growing_wise]

I read this very interesting article (and this research study, if you can see it) from The Chronicle of Higher Education about how having a baby affects a woman's chance at a tenure-track position in academe.

This is something that has been on my mind for a while now.  My partner and I want at least one child.  I plan on going for my Ph.D. soon

Comments

[ancarett]

Yes, the odds are against you, but it's not impossible. Got a t-t job in 1991, married in 92, gave birth to our first child in 1995, got tenure in 1996 and also bore our second child in that same year. This was in a family-friendly department at a small, teaching-intensive university that really, really wanted to keep me around. I had a three-month fully paid maternity leave in each case (even when the second one began midway through one semester and ended midway through the second). Nowadays, the standard mat leave is 6 months fully paid with an option to take one year at reduced salary

[st_crispins]

I've found personally that if you want a family-friendly space for women in academia, find a position at a Jesuit-run college or university.

[cluckydude]

Eh, or move to Canada.

We have one year paid familial leave at 55% of salary (and it can be split if there is more than one parent) - and that's national, across the board, whether you work at a university or you're a cashier at Wal-Mart. Many places, including the university I used to work at, top it up for a while, there it was 4 months, so you would get your full salary for four months, and then 55% for the next 8 months.

I'm leaving to do my PhD in the US, but I'm planning to come back.

Huh, this actually has nothing to do with tenure, a subject I know very little about directly, however, I will say that general trends do not dictate your particular situation. That said, I'm having my first sooner, and I don't plan on having a second until I adopt at some point later, which may well be prior to tenure.

[ewaeva]

This is very, very interesting. Would you elaborate?

(I like Jesuit-run places for a few other reasons, so this makes me happy.)

[st_crispins]

I've been in academia for about 25 years now and taught in all kinds of schools. I had my son in the second semester of my Ph.d. studies and because it was very unexpected and my profs were old friends, no one questioned my 'seriousness.' Still, I met very few women academics who were married,never mind had children

[crankyasanoldma]

As I was getting my PhD, my interest in a faculty job lessened. I could not identify a woman faculty member at my university whose life I admired or wanted to have, particularly in regards to their family/parenting situation. The young women I knew were delaying childbearing indefinitely. The older women I knew either had horror stories about how hard it was with kids, or had extremely advantageous family situations (husband with flexible schedule, grandparents nearby, etc).

Findings like this aren't terrifically surprising, therefore. Although they are discouraging.

For undergrad I attended a small liberal arts school. Those women faculty members seemed to be a lot more successful at having the kind of family life I wanted for myself, but my PhD wasn't in a field that would be taught at such a place. But if I were to teach, that's the kind of place I would seek out.

[cousin_annie]

As I was getting my PhD, my interest in a faculty job lessened. I could not identify a woman faculty member at my university whose life I admired or wanted to have, particularly in regards to their family/parenting situation.

Amen to that. For the same reason, my experience in my doctoral program has dissuaded me from pursuing any kind of high-level academic career. If this is the cost of admission then I don't want in.

[ppplmgwiw]

Double amen to that. I'm almost finished my Ph.D. and I'm getting less and less interested in a f/t tt academic job, the closer I get. I look around at the women on faculty (and, for the record, my mother and aunt are f/t tenured academics, so I'm looking at them, too) and just want to run screaming from the lives they lead.

[ppplmgwiw]

Yes, I believe this study. Of course, there are countless examples of women who have kids and get tenure in reasonable time, but on the whole, the picture the study paints is undoubtedly accurate. I've got 2 kids (ages 10 years, and 6.5 months) and expect to finish my Ph.D. in April 08. Sometimes having kids has worked for me (most of the time, actually--mostly people seem to take me more seriously, assume I'm good with time management, responsibility, etc.), but there have been a few, really painful moments where this or that faculty member made it clear that they were sticking me, unmoveable, on the "mommy track." At the time, I felt outraged and all that, but now I actually feel sorry for them. To be blunt, the longer I'm in the academic world, the less I give a shit what a lot of them think because I actually think their lives suck. If I have to be like a lot of the people in academia who I know in order to get tenure, then NO THANK YOU. I'm sure I can take my education and put it to use somewhere else where it will equally

[problematika]

It's really great they're coming out with this stuff, and thank you for posting it. I was pleased to read the following, given one of my rants in this comunity that left me feeling like i was possibly insane :-)

Micki McGee, a faculty fellow in interdisciplinary studies at New York University, has a 6-year-old daughter. She says the paucity of mothers in academe is higher education's loss. "Academe deprives itself of that kind of robust understanding that parenting provides to people by limiting the number of mothers in the community," she says.