Academia as a woman who wants a family

[StatGuy2000]

Here is an unrelated question that I wanted to pose to all of you at Physics Forums. Which industries can be said to be the most family friendly in the US, in terms of allowing for flexibility for women to be able to raise children without going through too many hurdles, as well as providing the most generous family benefits to women?

 

[moontiger]

Here is an unrelated question that I wanted to pose to all of you at Physics Forums. Which industries can be said to be the most family friendly in the US, in terms of allowing for flexibility for women to be able to raise children without going through too many hurdles, as well as providing the most generous family benefits to women?

I would say something that does not require one to train into one's 30s, where the nature of work is such that working from home is possible, jobs do not require extensive travel, and where part-time opportunities are available. I would guess that jobs in software or web development might be likely to fit this bill, but I don't know. My only actual job experience is as a physicist.

 

[analogdesign]

Here is an unrelated question that I wanted to pose to all of you at Physics Forums. Which industries can be said to be the most family friendly in the US, in terms of allowing for flexibility for women to be able to raise children without going through too many hurdles, as well as providing the most generous family benefits to women?

I would say one good one is public health. It is the culture in that field to have a more "project-oriented" career where you change jobs ever couple of years and there isn't a lot of stigma for taking a few years off or becoming a consultant for a while. This is very hard in the other fields I have specific knowledge of (namely engineering and physics in academia and industry). It is also normal (in many public health organizations) to allow work part-time work which is rare in a professional career.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Here is an unrelated question that I wanted to pose to all of you at Physics Forums. Which industries can be said to be the most family friendly in the US, in terms of allowing for flexibility for women to be able to raise children without going through too many hurdles, as well as providing the most generous family benefits to women?

Utilities tend to be stable, sedate places. The bureaucracy can be deep at times, but they do generally offer good job security and decent benefits. I have built a career at a large water utility where. After three years of service, one receives 19 days of annual leave per year and after 15 years of service we get 26 days of annual leave every year (literally one day off every two weeks), federal holidays, and not only maternity leave, but paternity leave as well. Overnight travel for work is rare. You can take some work home with you if you feel you must, but if you want to walk away from the crazy at the end of the day, you usually can.

However, senior staff positions are sometimes called upon for a week of 24 hour call. I was able to avoid that when my kids were too young to leave on their own.
I do know some who earned Ph.D degrees in other related fields who stumbled into this kind of work. They like it.

In general, this is not one of the sexier, high profile fields, We don't generally get people who go to school thinking, "when I graduate, I'm going to design stuff for a sewage treatment plant." But some smart people do stumble across this place. and a few find it relaxed and interesting enough to stick around.

 

[analogdesign]

In general, this is not one of the sexier, high profile fields, We don't generally get people who go to school thinking, "when I graduate, I'm going to design stuff for a sewage treatment plant." But some smart people do stumble across this place. and a few find it relaxed and interesting enough to stick around.

My father (now retired) designed waste-water treatment plants all over the world (although mostly in the US). I wonder if you've come across him over the years... small world. He worked for a consultant engineering firm, which I think is slightly less family-friendly that a utility.

 

[jack476]

I mostly agree with you. I'm in my late 30s and I have a baby on the way so obviously I didn't overthink it. That said, the incidence of some birth defects actually grows to numbers I would hesitate to call small. For example, by the early forties, a woman has a 2 - 3% chance of having a fetus with Down Syndrome. That's enough of a chance to give me pause.

But that's only Down syndrome. At any age, you have similar odds of having a child on the autism spectrum. You have anywhere between 5% and 10% chance of having a child with ADHD no matter what your own genetics are at any age. Your chances of having a child with bipolar are also between 2% and 3%, and your own age would have nothing to do with this. There is always a non-zero risk that your child will be born with a disability and nothing you can do about it.

My own experience with this argument is mostly that it's a statistic waved around by socially conservative types. It came up extremely frequently in our high school sex ed class, which was abstinence-focused and sponsored by a quasi-religious conservative PAC. Our book had an entire chapter devoted to the subject of why it's your social, moral, and biological priority to reproduce ASAP, and it reeked of BS.

 

[Arsenic&Lace]

It's doable. There are two female professors who are tenured and had children later, in their 30's, at my home institution. But my impression is that they have had to work even harder than their male counterparts, and they both have very supportive husbands.

 

[Niflheim]

But that's only Down syndrome. At any age, you have similar odds of having a child on the autism spectrum. You have anywhere between 5% and 10% chance of having a child with ADHD no matter what your own genetics are at any age. Your chances of having a child with bipolar are also between 2% and 3%, and your own age would have nothing to do with this. There is always a non-zero risk that your child will be born with a disability and nothing you can do about it.

My own experience with this argument is mostly that it's a statistic waved around by socially conservative types. It came up extremely frequently in our high school sex ed class, which was abstinence-focused and sponsored by a quasi-religious conservative PAC. Our book had an entire chapter devoted to the subject of why it's your social, moral, and biological priority to reproduce ASAP, and it reeked of BS.

I agree with the first part, but are you trying to imply that religious and conservative people think that people should reproduce as soon as they can?

 

[Dishsoap]

I also went to a religious school for middle and high school, and I can confirm that a lot of religious (though I'm not sure about conservative) people tend to be in support of a "God-planned" family, meaning no birth control... which, for obvious reasons, tends to result in having kids younger.

 

[jack476]

I agree with the first part, but are you trying to imply that religious and conservative people think that people should reproduce as soon as they can?

No, just that the curriculum had a very clear political angle and played rather loose with the facts. I said that the argument that it's somehow ideal to have children younger and that women ideally should be homemakers and child-rearers is typically a religious and conservative position, not that all religious conservative people argue that.