A study in Denmark has found that despite progress in parental leave policies and changing attitudes towards shared responsibilities, the impact of having a child on career trajectories remains significantly more pronounced for women. Researchers note that women take on average up to five times more parental responsibilities than men.
This is not the first time studies have documented this “parental penalty” on academic careers, particularly for women. However, some of these studies date back over a decade, allowing for shifts in attitudes. Furthermore, Denmark is known for its enviable social programs compared to other Western countries.
“Behaviors are changing much more slowly than attitudes,” commented economist Sofie Cairo in the journal Nature, who co-authored the study conducted by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
The main finding reveals that while men’s and women’s career trajectories were similar before the arrival of a child, they diverged significantly afterward. Both show a decrease in employability, but this decline is much more pronounced for women in the first four years. After eight years, these women were 29% less likely to be employed in a university compared to their counterparts, while the decrease for men was 14%. They were also less likely to have a research position in general (labs or research institutes outside of universities).
For women who remained in academia, the likelihood of losing their permanent position decreased by 35% after four years, and by 23% after eight years, with no measurable difference for fathers with or without children.
Cairo and her team used various Danish databases to gather information on 13,347 parents who enrolled in a doctoral program at a Danish university between 1996 and 2017 and had their first child after at least one year of doctoral studies.
