Among working professionals in academia, women are significantly more likely than men to exit the workforce after becoming a parent, according to an international study by scholars at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
The authors examined data from parenthood trends and the academic system in Denmark from 1996 to 2022. Notably, the authors call out that the academic system and fertility rates among the Danish population are similar to patterns found in other European countries and the United States, suggesting the study’s findings could be extended to these areas as well.
Using data that spans the academic pipeline from Ph.D. enrollment onward, the authors found women and men in academia initially follow similar career trajectories; however, after having children, gender differences begin to emerge. Overall, mothers are 15 percent less likely than fathers to be employed at universities. At the tenured level, men’s employment is unaffected by parenthood, while women experience a drop of 23 percent in their rate of tenured employment.
According to the authors, these findings are particularly pronounced among women early in their careers compared to women who wait to have children later in their careers. Among fathers, those who take paternity leave also face a higher likelihood of leaving academia than fathers who spend less time on childcare.
“We document that penalties on tenure rates are mitigated, but not absent, among researchers who postpone parenthood until having secured university employment,” the authors write. “Put differently, efforts to reduce the leaky pipeline – i.e., improve female representation at the later career stages – should direct their attention to the early career stages. Increased paternal involvement over the last decades – while meaningful – has not managed to reduce the impact of parenthood on women’s career progression.”