Careers With Children—How Does Early Motherhood Affect Attaining a Management Position Among Female Academics?

Abstract

Following the discussion on the “rush hour of life,” this paper addresses the question of whether having children before graduation or directly afterwards can be beneficial for female academics’ professional careers compared with becoming a mother after entering the labour market. While postponing starting a family is positive for career progression, according to various studies, research on the correlation between starting a family early and achieving a leadership position in Germany is scarce. Utilising data from the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) graduate panel, we employed logistic regression analyses to examine how likely it is that mothers will reach a leadership position depending on the timing of their childrenʼs birth. Mothers who had children during their studies or directly afterwards were more often in leadership positions ten years after graduation than the control group of mothers who had a family later in their careers. The former had fewer full-time phases in their employment histories, but they had more part-time phases and fewer interruptions. The results support human capital theory and signalling theory assumptions that it is advantageous to have children during oneʼs studies, as there is no job-specific human capital that is diminished by a longer interruption of employment.