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Can lifestyle preferences help explain the persistent gender gap in academia? The “mothers work less” hypothesis supported for German but not for U.S. early career researchers

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  • Monika Sieverding
  • Constanze Eib
  • Andreas B Neubauer
  • Thomas Stahl

Abstract

Do lifestyle preferences contribute to the remaining gender gap in higher positions in academia with highly qualified women—especially those with children—deliberately working fewer hours than men do? We tested the “mothers work less” hypothesis in two samples of early career researchers employed at universities in Germany (N = 202) and in the US (N = 197). Early career researchers in the US worked on average 6.3 hours more per week than researchers in Germany. In Germany, female early career researchers with children had drastically reduced work hours (around 8 hours per week) compared to male researchers with children and compared to female researchers without children, whereas we found no such effect for U.S. researchers. In addition, we asked how long respondents would ideally want to work (ideal work hours), and results revealed similar effects for ideal work hours. Results support the “mothers work less” hypothesis for German but not for U.S. early career researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Monika Sieverding & Constanze Eib & Andreas B Neubauer & Thomas Stahl, 2018. "Can lifestyle preferences help explain the persistent gender gap in academia? The “mothers work less” hypothesis supported for German but not for U.S. early career researchers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0202728
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202728
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    Cited by:

    1. Mike Thelwall, 2020. "Female citation impact superiority 1996–2018 in six out of seven English‐speaking nations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(8), pages 979-990, August.

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