My wife and I are both STEM PhDs, and she left research after our first child was born; we could be a case study for this article.<p>For us, it was because her field (immunology) was simply less lucrative than mine (computer science). Given the differences in gender distributions between both fields, and the pay gap between fields, I think simplifying this as STEM collectively isn't sufficiently granular. I wonder what the rates are for "left CS after child" vs "left biology after child", and how they compare.<p>With that being said, it's likely that there are also systemic/structural differences as well; research (and academia in particular) is notorious for poor work-life balance (prior to tenure). Social undercurrents of expectation towards primary caregivers would certainly have some influence as well.<p>I know it shifts the narrative slightly, but I would also be interested to see the effects of PhDs on birthrates, broken down by field, gender, and country of birth. It seems to me that it would be negatively correlated, but I don't have the data to back up that observation.
My wife's experience:<p>PI: "You put your kid in front of the TV for 2 hours a day to get stuff done? That's terrible parenting."<p>PI: "You will be late 1 day for a meaningless group presentation to your own lab, because your child is sick and can't go to daycare? Get your priorities straight."
While the title focuses on female scientists, males are also affected. From the article: "...23% of men and 43% of women who had become parents had left full-time STEM employment. ... This compared to 16% of child-free men and 24% of child-free women."
Its kinda interesting to see the related articles on the same site: about how many of the smartest scientists are more successful doing other stuff (like finance). <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/life-outside-the-lab-the-ones-who-got-away-1.15802" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/news/life-outside-the-lab-the-ones-wh...</a><p>Perhaps there is a common theme that Full-Time science isn't necessarily the best life path for many people and the "US Female Scientists who leave" are actually happy with the outcome rather than symptom of a problem.<p>You can phrase it another way - "Many Male Scientists stuck in their job and unable to change their STEM careers".
It's disappointing to see just how much articles like these inspire some frequenters here to come out with their pet sexist theories on why this is expected and why such studies are not warranted.<p>To address one aspect of criticism, studies like these are not necessarily with an interest toward equal representation for its own sake, nor something that is best dealt with by resigning to the status quo that people are free to make choices and they deal with the consequences of it. There is talent lost in the field when stuff like this happens, and this is a first step to understanding if there are more efficient ways to address a need among families that is not currently being adequately addressed. If these can be addressed efficiently, then people will make different choices, and the consequences of those different decisions may be a net benefit to everyone.
I would bet this is a symptom of STEM PhD holders being educated and tending to have wealthier partners. It’s not that they must leave STEM, it’s that they can, and many many people would prefer to raise a family than work
Completely anecdotal evidence, but every female coworker I've ever worked with has left work to raise their child after the first baby. Every single one of them said that they were definitely coming back before they went on maternity leave (and I believe that they believed it).<p>The main issue in every case was that as the new mothers got to the end of their maternity leave, they started to think about day care. In the end, they felt that they could not trust the day care centres with their child. Similarly the mothers did not trust their own husbands to look after the child because the husband had not spent much time with the child at that point. Because all of the families I knew were relatively well off with dual incomes, they eventually decided that the woman would quit work to look after the child.<p>In my anecdotal data, in no cases was there a salary gap between the man and the woman. Both were making roughly the same amount. Neither was it a case of not being able to afford child care -- although, once they crunched the numbers the cost of child care was a good percentage of one of the salaries, so it made it easier to take the financial hit to move to a single income. As far as I could tell, in all cases it just came down to trust.<p>For this reason, I think there should be some sort of encouraged paternal leave. For example, the government/company in partnership could pay for 80% of the salary for 6 months for the father to look after the child. This would occur immediately after the mother's maternity leave.<p>What this does is provide a financial incentive for the father to learn to look after the child. When the paternity leave is finished, then the choices look very different. I think it's still likely that one parent (in well to do dual family incomes) will choose to look after their child and quit their job (and I see nothing wrong with that). However, now the <i>woman</i> has spent the last 6 months working and it will be a harder decision to quit. The <i>man</i> now has had a chance to show that he can look after the child and the woman will be able to trust him with that responsibility.<p>I honestly believe without that kind of system, there will <i>always</i> be a disparity between men and women when it comes to one parent choosing to quit their job and raise children. I should point out that, personally, I think raising children is a wonderful job, even if it doesn't pay so well ;-) Sometimes I think modern society looks down on that role and I think it's rather unfair. However, I do understand that we aren't quite modern enough to make that job reasonably risk free (you're dependent upon your spouse which is not always going to work out). We've got a long way to go...
Is there a problem with part-time science? I am not reading the article and I imagine this is a tangent, but it would actually be interesting if work in true science was thought of as a part time pursuit, at least by practicing engineers and others in technical fields that had ideas they were interested in studying scientifically but their day jobs are far too lucrative to leave for the pursuit of knowledge. That, or the 20% time policy (again, no idea how this works in practice) being adopted at a more national level, somehow creating incentives for companies to allow their talent to pursue science that might be a bit more out there than would traditionally receive a formal grant.
If I'm understanding the timeline of the study properly, they're looking at parents of toddlers. IMO it would be more interesting to see how many parents were still working part-time or not at all once their kids are old enough to go to school
Most scientists leave after their PhD, if they know what's good for them. Postdocs suck, PIs suck, and big industry is slashing r+d budgets as fast as they can. Science as it's performed is only appropriate for the truly obsessive.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that these findings could be repeated across all/most industries. I doubt that it is just female <i>scientists</i> that make this choice.
I wonder what % of these cases could be explained by understanding how much money each parent is making.<p>I'd wager that US Female Scientists probably make less than their partners. I'd wager that it's more likely for a US Female Scientist to stay in her position when she makes more money than her partner.<p>Do US Female Scientists have a preference for starting families with those who out-earn them?
I was accepted to a PhD in both economics and math, yet I had to turn them down due to being a parent of two small children. My wife stays at home with them, thus reducing my salary to a TA wasn't feasible for 4 - 6 years.<p>Is there a problem with the system when men have to give up opportunities due to having children?
This is why I think women would birth children first and then decide if they want to raise them or pay someone else to raise them. Pretty stupid to spend 4-8 years of your life and thousands of dollars on schooling only to abandon that investment.
That's very uneconomical and an inefficient allocation of limited resources. Is there a way to "force" them to come back, i.e. by offering 80% off on student loans while raising costs 5x in parallel that can't be repaid by their spouses? There should be some kind of responsibility incorporated to the system. One should not just cherry pick the good parts (status/prestige/free time).