Women in Science
When is the best time to have children?
Video clip: Carolyn explained that many women worry about the timing of their children and are concerned that time off work will affect their publication record.
...but there is still the problem of if you have a child you then have to, you will have that year or six months or whatever when you’re not at work and hopefully if you’ve got students or whatever they’ll carry on working. One of my colleagues has just had a baby and she had a student so we shared, other people in the group looked after him while she was off. And so to an extent her research carries on but it’s not the same as if you’re there and then when you come back you’ve got to pick up the pieces. And then if you want to have another child you then think, ‘Well do I do it now? Do I wait?’ You know, and I think that problem won’t really ever go away. And so you will have this sort of dip in productivity. You won’t do, so like I was saying that a lot of my papers are collaborative, you won’t get any of those for that six or nine months you’re off because you won’t be doing those collaborations. And so there will by default be a drop in your publication.