A few months ago, I was finally kicked out of my final PhD program. I had been enrolled in one program or another for the past ten years, but with the exception of my first attempt in London (on Nietzsche!), something else always came up (work-wise), and I remained a passive academic.
I visited a PhD colloquium of my former (Berlin) university yesterday, because they had invited also alumni to attend a talk by a PostDoc researcher on - tadaatadaa - compatibility of work and family. Most participants were PhD students, desperately trying not to nod off and draw parallels to their own work on regression analysis, dummy variables, or what not. Gender makes many people yawn - literally.
The paper that the researcher presented was really interesting, and having been trained in the US, the focus was quite quantitative (lots of data!). The findings showed that for 27 European countries, women work as much as men - although they may earn slightly less for the same work (the pay gap). However, with children, women work substantially less in all countries, and their pay falls drastically. There is no effect on fathers - there's often even a "fatherhood premium" in that pay increases when men have children (good old alphas!!!).
In countries with taxation systems that have a preference for married couples (see my blog on German Crazy German Ehegattensplitting ), women work and earn even less. But the biggest whopper is whether there is (affordable) childcare (with sufficient hours) on offer.
There's always so much to learn. I hope that I never stop being interested. And that even at the age of 70, I will visit a PhD colloquium.
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