Roxanne wrote,
> I think we're also looking at a "wife effect" here for want of a better
> word. Why are those guys with young kids more likely to get tenure than
> unmarried men?
Yes, this strikes me as quite an amazing statistic.
> They may be more likely to have stay at home wives since
> their kids are young. These women get dinner on the table, do the laundry,
> get birthday presents for their parents/grandparents, plan the vacation,
> find the new place to live when they move etc. So maybe we all need
> "wives"!
Indeed. I have often felt that I need a "wife" so that I can focus all my
attention on the science, without distractions, as many of my colleagues
do. There are plenty of distractions even for the unmarried, non-parent.
I look around at my faculty colleagues and observe that yes, nearly all of the
men are married, and often their spouses do not have equivalently high-powered
careers. This is not so for all the women; more are single, and of those
with spouses, more of them have similarly demanding careers.
So, assuming we don't want a "MOMMY TRACK" in science, but want
instead to make academic science a family-friendly and life-friendly endeavor
to parents of both sexes, what's to be done?
--
-susan
Help me raise money for leukemia research!
http://pingu.salk.edu/~forsburg/TNT.html
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S L Forsburg, PhD Associate Professor
The Salk Institute, La Jolla CA
forsburgATsalk.edu
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