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The Price of Parenting in STEM: Explaining Career Paths and Pay Consequences of Parenthood among Science and Engineering Professionals

 

Principal Investigators: Erin A. Cech (University of Michigan); Co-PI: Mary Blair-Loy (UC San Diego)

 

Summary: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields are culturally and demographically dominated by men. Research has shown that women encounter barriers in STEM education and advancement compared to similarly qualified men. Yet, the effects of parenthood on STEM careers are not well understood.  In this project we ask, does parenting –particularly motherhood--incur penalties in STEM in terms of retention, advancement, and salary?

Starting from the theoretical perspective that socially structured life courses unfold within gendered institutions, we analyze how parenthood shapes career trajectories and rewards for women and men in STEM professions. This project is the first of its kind to use representative, longitudinal data to analyze potential parenthood penalties among STEM professionals. We also attend to how these parenthood effects differ intersectionally by race/ethnicity, education level, sector (e.g., industry, academia), and field (e.g., biology, mechanical engineering).  Such research is imperative for our ability to build theory about how gender impacts participation across all career stages and to develop interventions that improve women's long-term persistence and success in STEM.

Our analysis uses nationally representative, longitudinal, restricted-use data of STEM professionals from National Science Foundations’ National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics SESTAT data system.  Our sample (N=17,599) includes STEM professionals who were employed full-time in 2003 and followed through 2010.

Funder: National Science Foundation (Any opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.)

Results

 

“The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM.” 2019. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found here.

 

The article has received media coverage from Science, Nature, Reuters, and other outlets and was recognized by PNAS as a top 10 article of 2019 to make a “large impact on the public understanding of science."

Parenthood contributes to the underrepresentation of women in STEM, in part due to gender-related cultural expectations and workplace obstacles.  In an analysis of nationally representative, longitudinal data on STEM professionals (SESTAT 2003-2010), the authors found that within 4-7 years after the birth or adoption of their first child, 43% of women and 23% of men left their full-time STEM careers.  Moreover, compared with their childless peers who transitioned out of STEM careers, new parents were more likely to attribute their transition to family-related reasons.  Further, once parents left the STEM workforce, they were unlikely to return by the time their children were old enough to attend school.

These results indicate the need for employers to establish highly valued and well-paid part-time options as well as ramp-up policies that allow part-time STEM professional to transition back into full-time work without long-term career penalties.  The researchers point to the importance of a cultural transformation within STEM to fully value the contributions of STEM professionals with children and the need for creative organizational solutions to help these skilled STEM professionals navigate new caregiving responsibilities alongside their STEM work.

Erin A. Cech and Mary Blair-Loy.  “A Different Kind of Motherhood Penalty: Gendered Diversion from Professions’ Core Work Activities.” Working Paper, University of Michigan and UC San Diego.

 

Gender and work scholars have documented the pay and promotion penalties that women with children often face in the professional workforce. They have agued that such motherhood pay penalties are rooted in labor-force-wide cultural skepticism about mothers’ devotion to their work and fit with ideal worker norms. A separate literature in the sociology of work has argued that professional cultures harbor their own intra-profession value hierarchies that define certain tasks as most “core,” or the purest representation of the field’s expertise. These value hierarchies confer the highest esteem to profession members who engage in these core tasks. Weaving together these two distinct literatures, we theorize and empirically investigate a novel kind of motherhood penalty: the exclusion of mothers from the core work tasks of their profession. We use the case of STEM profession to examine women’s departure from core technical work tasks after having children.