Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women's academic careers than it is to men's, lowering their chances of getting university jobs, tenure and reducing their publication output, finds a large analysis1 of academics in Denmark. The reason, according to the study, is that women have almost five times the amount of childcare responsibilities than do men. A lot has been done in Denmark to encourage both men and women to take parental leave, and attitudes around who should take on caregiving responsibilities are changing, says Sofie Cairo, an economist at Copenhagen Business School. 'But behaviours change much more slowly than attitudes.' Researchers have long documented the effects of parenthood on academic careers, particularly for women. Many studies have reported that women in science face 'motherhood penalties', such as lower wages and fewer promotions than men. The latest study published in March by the Centre for Economic Performance, a research centre based at the...
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