January 23, 2005 10:42 AM

Having it all ... in retirement
Posted by Diane Danielsonat 10:42 AM

More discussion on women and academia following the Summers' Slip-up from Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe. Is being a 66-year old new mom the only way to "sequence" your career in academia?

... Berkeley Dean Mary Ann Mason set out to answer the question asked by her women graduate students: "Is there a good time to have a baby?"

Her analysis of 160,000 PhDs showed that having children early in their careers was a boon for men and a bust for women. Fathers who had children within five years of their PhD were more likely to get tenure-track jobs than other men, but mothers were less likely than either fathers or other women. As for women who got on the tenure track before the baby track? Only one in three ever became mothers.

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