Tenure route longer for women in science

Women in science and engineering are less likely than men to earn tenure, and having children earlier is particularly damaging to a woman's chances of upward mobility, according to a National Science Foundation study released last month.

''Our results say that if you're a male and you're married and have children, it doesn't hurt your career. If you're a woman, it does," said Jerome T. Bentley, lead author of the study and chairman of the economics department at Rider University in New Jersey.

The report, based on a nationwide survey of doctoral recipients, showed that a decade-and-a-half out of school, women are almost 14 percent less likely than men to have become a full professor.

Being married reduces a woman's chance of getting tenure, as does having a child -- and women with children over age 6 suffered more than those with younger children, according to a stastistical model used in the research.

''It suggests that women have to take on a disproportionate burden when it comes to family responsibilities," Bentley said.

Several local mothers with tenure said they tell younger women that parenthood doesn't have to derail their careers.

''I didn't wait," said Melissa Franklin, a professor of physics at Harvard University. ''I forgot."

Franklin's 7-year-old son, Nica, was born during a sabbatical five years after she achieved tenure.

''You're kind of busy and suddenly it dawns on you that you're 35," she said. ''It was no conscious decision not to have kids until I had tenure."

Franklin is one of 155 tenured female professors at Harvard, compared to 679 men. Across town at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 103 of the 703 tenured professors are women.

MIT president Charles M. Vest, who has made promoting women a top priority of his decade in office, said male and female assistant professors at MIT achieve tenure at the same rate.

Judith A. Hall, a professor of psychology at Northeastern, said her children have balanced her life, and she advocates the academic world as ideal for having children because it allows scheduling flexibility.

''I think that women who have children actually get more done because they're very efficient," said Hall, the founder of a faculty women's networking program at Northeastern.

After she received her PhD from Harvard, she accepted a position at Johns Hopkins University. Less than four years later, though, Hall jumped off the tenure track to move back to Boston and have her children.

Although she officially took six years off, she continued to publish and teach part time, which gave her a leg up when she returned to academia at Northeastern, she said.

Though Hall and Franklin managed to succeed at both parenting and teaching, Bentley's report suggests that the tenure process can be improved to help mothers. He suggests that more schools allow more time or offer an optional year-long extension before tenure reviews. MIT, among other schools, already allows that extra year.

''That gives the woman another year to put together a portfolio or resume that improves the chances of tenure," Bentley said.

Jessica T. Lee can be reached at jtlee@globe.com.