| 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. |