In this era of an extremely high number of spousal hirings, who is
considering Case 3. The scientist with no spouse? or even Case 4. The
scientist with a non-academic spouse, or Case 5. The scientist with no
spouse BUT does have children?
Who looks out for the unmarried in our society?
On 4/11/2012 6:21 PM, Martin Meiss wrote:
One problem not addressed here so far is that science is very competitive
for jobs, publication, and grants. Let us imagine two young scientists
with similar intelligence and education beginning their careers:
Case 1. This person has a spouse who assumes most of the responsibility in
the domestic sphere (house-keeping, child-rearing, bill-paying, shopping,
lawn-mowing, etc.), provides support to the scientist however needed, and
has no career choices to conflict with the scientists'.
Case 2. This person has a spouse whose career is also demanding, can only
do some of the domestic and child-rearing chores, and who may insist on
taking a job in another state, requiring the scientist to move or make some
other major adjustment.
Obviously, the scientist in Case 1 is at a competitive advantage. Of
course, there's nothing new about stating this; feminists have been
pointing it out for many years. This may be what the person Rachel Guy
quoted meant. It's not that the person with the more "balanced" life does
inferior science; indeed, this persons' broader experience and different
perspectives may lead to science that is more creative, leading to greater
insights into nature and greater increase in knowledge.
Fine, but that doesn't mean Case 1's career will go better. Much
scientific advancement and career advancement is achieved by plodding along
doggedly. This alone can result in more publications, grants, etc. The
scientist of Case 2 simply has more time for grinding out scientific
product.
I don't want to be to cynical, but it seems to me that, all else being
equal, the person who focuses his/her life only on science is going to have
a more "successful" career, perhaps at the expense of being a narrow and
boring person. These are the choices that anyone in a competitive career
must face, and I don't see how institutional and societal accommodations
will ever completely eliminate this disparity.
Martin M. Meiss
2012/4/11 Elizabeth<elizabethm...@gmail.com>
I am struggling with this. I finished my MS in Wildlife Biology when my
baby was 7 months. She's going on 15 months now and I haven't been able to
find any work in my field. I'm limited to a job that has no travel and is
in town where my husband has his job and we have our house. This makes for
very slim pickings.
Elizabeth Ray
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:08 PM, Andres Lopez-Sepulcre<
lopezsepul...@gmail.com> wrote:
In my experience, it all depends on the country and how easy funding
agencies, research institutions and governments make it. I have
experience
in several countries: Spain, USA, France and Finland. They each have
their
good and bad points on that respect. Fore example, while the USA and
Canada
tend to be pretty good at opening jobs for couples, which helps
enormously
the two-body problem, I find that some European countries offer better
conditions to be a parent. For example, in Finland and Sweden the
government offers paid maternity and/or paternity leaves of at least 10
months. Since this is a 'stipend' independent of the scientific
fellowship
or contract, it essentially means that if they had 3-years of funding,
they
now will have that + 10 months (i.e. the grant or contract 'slides'
forward). Moreover, there are good free or cheap daycare services and
even
sometimes, daycare or family-housing in field stations. The conditions
are
so good that I have never seen such a high rate of graduate students
pregnant or with children as in those countries... and they are
consequentially doing better than average at keeping women in science. Of
course, many countries (like Spain, my home-country) fail in all aspects.
Andres Lopez-Sepulcre
Laboratoire d'Ecologie, UMR 7625
Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris
alo...@biologie.ens.fr
http://web.me.com/asepulcre
On Apr 11, 2012, at 5:54 PM, Rachel Guy wrote:
I've been following the debate Simone Whitecloud inspired concerning
babies in the field. This brought to mind something I was told when I
was
pursuing my B.S. in Wildlife Ecology:
"You can be a scientist, a spouse or a parent. Two of these things you
can be simultaneously great at doing, while the third will suffer." I'm
not sure I entirely agree with this statement, but I have seen personal
relationships tried by professional obligations and professional
obligations tried by personal obligations. Particularly in a field that
often demands long absences and irregular hours, I can see how this
would
particularly be true. Though, I have also seen faculty and research
scientists with families that seem pretty stable and happy. Is there any
substance to this paradigm, and if so, are there realistic ways in
which we
can change them? I'd love to hear the communities' thoughts on this as
it
is something that I have often reflected on as I've progressed through
my
career. Can we have it all? What are the key differences between the
ones
that are seemingly able to do it and the one's where the challenges
become
too great?
Rachel Guy
Project Coordinator, Research Assistant
--
Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D.
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Founder/Owner: All Things Bugs
Capitalizing on Low-Crawling Fruit from Insect-Based Innovation
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