Parenthood and Academic Career Trajectories

Despite women pursuing degrees in economics for over a century, they remain underrepresented at the top of the profession. In Europe, women constitute 27 percent of researchers with tenure and 38 percent of junior researchers. In the United States, these numbers are even lower at 20 percent and 32 percent, respecbe contributing to this disparity is parenthood. The extent to which having a child can affect labor market outcomes, known as the "child penalty," has been extensively studied (e.g., Harkness and Waldfogel 2003; Kleven, Landais, and SOgaard 2019). As the arrival of children often takes place early in the research career, it is important to understand how parenthood contributes to "the leaky pipeline" of women. women's academic careers in the field of economics. To do so, we use administrative data from Denmark covering all individuals enrollstep into academia and overcome important