Scientists with children suffer a ‘parenting penalty’ in their research

Academics with children become less productive and do work of lower impact as their childcare responsibilities increase. That’s the finding of a survey of 11,226 researchers around the world, which revealed the same trend for both male and female “lead” parents. But because women academics are much more likely to be the primary care providers – even when reporting equal sharing of parenting – it means that they suffer more scientifically when having children

Based on researchers who have written papers indexed in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, the survey reveals that women play a much bigger role in raising children, with almost a third (30.6%) of female respondents being the primary care providers for their children, compared with just 3.9% of men fulfilling that role. More than half (52.0%) of women and 57.1% of men say they share childcare responsibilities in a “dual” parenting model. However, only 17.4% of women play a minor or “satellite” role in parenting, compared to 38.9% of men.

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