Women in Science. Lessons from the Baby Boom
Author Scott Daewon Kim
Author Petra Moser
Abstract How do children affect women in science? We investigate this question using rich biographical data, linked with patents and publications, for 83,000 American scientists in 1956 at the height of the baby boom. Our analyses reveal a unique life-cycle pattern of productivity for mothers. While other scientists peak in their mid-thirties, mothers become more productive after age 35 and maintain high productivity in their 40s and 50s. Event studies show that the output of mothers increases after 15 years of marriage, while other scientists peak in the first 10 years. Differences in the timing of productivity have important implications for tenure and participation. Just 27% of mothers who are academic scientists get tenure, compared with 48% of fathers and 46% of women without children. Mothers face comparable tenure rates to other assistant professors for the first six years but fall behind afterwards, suggesting that they face higher standards of early productivity. Mothers who survive in science are extremely positively selected: Compared with other married women, mothers patent (publish) 2.5 (1.4) times more before the median age at marriage. Compared with men, female scientists are more educated, half as likely to marry, one-third as likely to have children, but half as likely to survive in science. Employment records indicate that a generation of baby boom mothers was lost to science.
URL https://www.nber.org/papers/w29436
Series NBER Working Paper Series
DOI 10.3386/w29436
Reading Notes:
Objective: To understand the life-cycle patterns of research productivity of mothers versus fathers and men and women without children
Importance: There is well-documented evidence that children affect women's earnings, but much less on productivity
Background: During the Baby Boom couples had children soon after they married and childcare fell nearly exclusively on mothers
Data & Key Variables:
Men of Science (1956) - biographical data on 83,000 American scientists with year of marriage, number of children, and date of birth
US Patent Data 1930-1970
Publications from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG)
Columbia faculty records matched to 1940 Census data
Methodology: Descriptive statistics and event-study analysis showing changes in publishing/patenting/tenure by time since marriage
Results: Mothers' productivity flattens at median age of marriage, but recovers in mid-30s, and stays high through 40s & 50s
These differences in productivity timing may explain some of the discrepancy in achieving tenure for mothers versus men and women without children. Tenure processes reward early productivity
Key Table/Figure:
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