I had planned to blog at greater length about this, but I probably will not get around to it. "Want to Get Ahead? Get Hitched" is IHE's headline about a study by a graduate student in economics at Cornell University that showed the benefits of being married on graduate school completion and abtaining a tenure track position. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most benefits go to married men. But what may be surprising to some are the benefits relative to single women and men for married women. Even more surprising considering the multi-taskers that the married female grad students tended to be:
Price said it was notable that a majority of women in his study who were married had children, and yet they were more productive and successful than single women. He said he hoped that those admitting graduate students to programs and hiring them would take note. “We shouldn’t view married women as being less able to do well in graduate school and the professoriate,� he said.
I can certainly attest to the married-woman-with-children scenarios. The biggest factors for me? Having a spouse who brought in real income ("real" does not equal graduate stipends) and time management-by-gunpoint. In fact, I completed my masters degree program as a partner- and child-free woman: I often think that I could have discovered a cure for cancer during that time if only I possessed the juggling skills I had to develop in my PhD program!