Many more female PhD graduates are delaying parenthood until they have established an academic career, says a major international study whose results suggest younger mothers face significant professional disadvantages.
Drawing on a global survey of 8,097 academic parents, the study published recently in the Springer journal Higher Education identified key trends for scholars depending on their gender, with women much more likely to complete a PhD before the age of 30 and delay parenthood until after 35.
In contrast, men tended to become parents during their doctoral studies and often had three or more children by the age of 40.
Delaying parenthood until after 35 was “particularly prevalent” among women born after 1970 (the study’s youngest two cohorts), who tended to wait about seven years until after PhD completion to have children, explains the study by researchers based in Germany, the UK, Canada and the US.
That trend likely reflected the “widely-recognised, if problematic, logic that early-career years are decisive for long-term academic success”, said the study, whose respondents mainly came from the US, UK and Canada.
