Not 'news' to anyone here, I know, but scary article about motherhood and academia

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/06/female_academics_pay_a_heavy_baby_penalty.html?fb_ref=sm_fb_share_chunky

I thought this was interesting, though hardly surprising. I find it quite a big concern given how much research we're constantly being shown, that 'proves' women are all [insert stereotype here]. This article looking at why so many women don't progress in academia - and in particular why mothers don't - perhaps gives a good reason why we might take some research with a pinch of salt: it's largely done by men and childless women.

I still think if women insist their partner play a full equal role (I was married for 19 years) it is the secret. Huge numbers of very successful women mention this as the key. if you take on the wife work more fool you. Perhaps girls need assertiveness and feminism training and men a kick up the bottom at home. If the man does not do the domestic task which is his - my children's father did 100% of the washing at one stage for example, not help me, did all of it as plenty of other fathers do, you just don't do it for that person. Don't enable the sexism at home.

It may for a very short period when the chidlren are under 5 very hard work for both to work full time but it's dead easy once children get a bit bigger and you had 30 years of high paid working life to come so worth the few hard years.

Xenia I don't disagree with you that huge numbers of successful women cite an equal marriage as key to success. I tend to think of it something like this. Suppose there are 100 ambitious women who, in an ideal world, are destined for success. Split them into 3 categories:

• 10 don't get married, and maybe 5 of these succeed in their ambition
• 30 get married and manage to maintain an equal partnership without stepping back, 15 of whom make it to the top
• the remaining 60 get married and find themselves in an unequal marriage, step back when they have kids etc, very few will succeed, maybe 2-3

Those women who have an unequal marriage will almost certainly struggle to get on. Convincing those 60 women not to stand for sexism will obviously have a huge impact on the success of women in general, and so I think your message is definitely important.

Of the women who do succeed, a large number will cite an equal partnership as a key factor in their success simply by virtue of the numbers.

But what about the remaining 20 women, who have an equal marriage (or none)? Do you have any insight into reasons why they might not succeed in their ambitions?

It seems to me that you can only make it to the top if you have an equal partnership, but having an equal partnership is no guarantee that you will. Though I'd bet that if you took a comparable group of 100 ambitious men, many more than 50% of them would succeed. So there are other structural biases, some of which are specific to academia, that come into play.

It may for a very short period when the chidlren are under 5 very hard work for both to work full time but it's dead easy once children get a bit bigger

I think someone already mentioned that they found what I did - both working ft was fine when the children were under 5 but actually became harder/impossible at schoolage - the school day is short and there's the school run to deal with. Academics - at the ages when they have small kids - generally aren't on the sort of wage which allows for wraparound child care of schoolage kids, and they generally will have left their hometown and not have a supply of helpful grandparents/relatives to fill the gap. 'Dead easy' may have been your experience, xenia, in whatever field it is you work in but I doubt it applies to many academics (and many others)

Childcare will be harder for us once DS2 goes to school. We don't have any family within 100 miles of us and finding decent after school care with spaces is tough. The worst bit is going to be the part-time easing in to reception nonsense in September. He's been in FT nursery for years; the school day is going to seem short to him as it is.

It's easy to sit there and say 'I did it, so you should be able to too', but other people have different circumstances to deal with.

So we are saying because academia is so utterly badly paid you cannot even afford a live in au pair at £60 a week or 3 hours after school care at £10 a hour in the week and because these women are in very unequal marriages where the man insists if anyone collects children from school it must be the woman that is why these women find it hard and because they married men who earned very little too?

There are university holidays. I would have thought that academics do have a bit more holiday than most of us who work in the City etc. Are we saying it is low pay plus a sexist and low paid husband is the reason that female academics find full time work once children are at full time school is hard?

university holidays

Someone else explain please. We are going out to play.

Xenia - I am employed by the medical research council to do research. Not by the university. We do not get holidays off!

No more from me as I am beginning to suspect I may on fact be in labour at bloody last

Academics do not take 3 months off in the summer.

If you are an academic you don't just teach at a university - you do your own research too. You will either be on fixed-term contracts or seeking your own funding, and you won't get another contract or more funding unless you produce the right output.

The hours may be flexible but most people I know who work in academic research work more hours in total and take fewer holidays and are more likely to work at weekends than everyone else.

To have an au pair, one would have to have a spare room.

DH and I can afford wrap around care, but there are several issues involved in finding decent after school care round here that is not entirely full. One of the after school clubs is dangerously bad (real safeguarding issues) and the others are very hard to get places in. There isn't much choice in the way of childminders either. This is what will make it tricky for us.

The student holidays at university do not in any way reflect the staff holiday entitlement. We've got the same kind of AL as you Xenia. Except that most academics never take their AL because they're too busy writing grant applications or papers that they don't get time to do when they're officially a work, or marking 100s of exam scripts over chistmas/new year. Or they drag their family on fieldwork 'holidays'. Or you have to go to bloody conferences, which cost a fortune (and the university doesn't pay). Not doing all of the above kills off your promotion prospects very rapidly, and usually sees you ever more loaded with teaching and admin responsibilities (to free up research time for those who have done all hose things).

Is Xenia reminding anyone else of Marie Antoinette?

So we are saying because academia is so utterly badly paid you cannot even afford a live in au pair at £60 a week or 3 hours after school care at £10 a hour in the week

According to a quick google, research council PhD stipends in the UK are £13,726 pa (tax free), which is a good guess as to what the average PhD student lives on. The average postdoc salary in in the range £23,475 - £35,254. So, with a PhD and 2x2 year postdocs, you will get to around 30 years of age on a salary that's not great, probably have no savings because you'll have had some period of self-funding and had to cover early years childcare and other expenses such as travel that you didn't get university funding for. Plus the best universities tend to be in expensive cities so your salary doesn't go as far as it might if you had freedom over where you live.

So yes, a live-in au pair or £150 a week on wrap around care can be hard to cover.

and because these women are in very unequal marriages where the man insists if anyone collects children from school it must be the woman

Not necessarily, most academic couples I know share duties. e.g. my DH and I split pick-up and drop-off, although our DD is only 2 so is at nursery all day long and we don't have to deal with early school finishes. This week, in fact, the nursery rang to say that DD was ill. I had a meeting scheduled so DH took the afternoon off. Even so, having to deal with half of the childcare stuff can be a hinderance (but I think academia offers a lot of flexibility to deal with this - one thing in its favour!)

that is why these women find it hard and because they married men who earned very little too?

I think this is a big problem for female academics, who often marry male academics. Male academics are often married to women who are prepared to stay home and do the domestic stuff.

I repeat, wanting to see your own children sometimes is NOT the definition of a sexist marriage!

Xenia: it's very easy to sit smugly and blame everyone for not being ale to afford a nanny (and we certainly cannot) or for needing to sleep! In fact, I'd say your attitude actually makes it harder for everyone.

University holidays? Live-in au pair? What's next? Let them eat cake? (at least cake is realistic) I rest my case.

Isn't it just that only 20% of people male or female have the XX factor and want to lean in and work hard and the other 80% just are not prepared to put in what it takes

I think this may well be true. But I also think that while most of those 20% of men will make it, nowhere near the 20% of women with the XX factor will succeed. And I think there are more subtle reasons than just an unequal marriage.

Oops, posted too early! I'd go as far as to say that an equal marriage is more important for academic success than in a city job, as salaries and other factors mean that you can't afford to just outsource the domestic/childcare chores.

So why do these very very bright women pick jobs which are paid about the same as acall centre person on the minimum wage? It defies belief.
Also very sexist to say those of us who work full time do not see our chidlren. Many full time working fathers and mothers rush home at 6 or 7 every night and devote hours to chidlren. That is still seeing your children.

I did not say nanny. I said 3 hours after school 3 - 6 and £10 an hour.

let us say the two full time working academics are on £30k each, i.e. 60k. That's £23k net each. Let us assume the after school person is paid £30 for 3 hours x 5 days = £150 and ignore the school holidays for now. So that is = £7800 a year divided by two as men and women in equal marriages pay half childcare that is £3900 a year each - not a massive high price to pay to keep a career going full time surely? And once the children are 13 or 14 they will not need that care. Or use the live in au pair option if children will share rooms (as mine do) to free up a room for an au pair.

Anyway I enable and help women solve problems. If people don't want my advice that's fine. I like action, not moaning.

Xenia, although I disagree with you on many things, I normally have a lot of time for your posts. But now I just think you are clueless about academia. First, as many people have pointed out, we don't have any better holiday entitlement than anyone else - certainly nothing like university students' holidays or schoolteachers' holidays. In fact, I don't know any academics who take anywhere near their full leave entitlement anyway. Like you, I take around 2 weeks a year (and my head of department has been known to raise an eyebrow at even that).

Second, no! We can't afford an au pair! We can't even afford a house which would have enough space for an au pair. Academic salaries are VERY LOW by comparison with other similar jobs with a similar length training period (8-10 years). I think most academics do it for love.

Both DH and I are FT academics with a small child. It is bloody hard. I work a 40hr week officially, plus an extra 3 hours every evening and around another 5 hours at weekends - so that's about a 66hr week. I also have a 4hr daily commute. DH does the same (though without the commute). I really resent being called lazy. We have an equal partnership and as a result we are both struggling, but I think I am struggling more. I can see deeply entrenched sexism in my department in many ways - through the secret workload model, higher pay for male colleagues, more random admin dumped on the women... Having an equal marriage dies not make up for all this structural inequality at work.

Because the job is (or at least aspects of it are, or should be) fantastic. I think most academics do it out of real love for their subject area, and sod the low wages. Unfortunately, the system seems to suck that love out of it for quite a significant number - and probably mostly women.