Female Professors Downplay Own Careers

Female Professors Downplay Own Careers

Wives in dual-career academic relationships — in which both partners work in academia — are more likely than husbands to downplay the importance of their careers, new research finds. A survey of 30,000 professors and researchers at 13 major research universities finds that in academic couples, 50% of husbands say their career comes first compared with only 20% of wives.

Academic couples are actually more equitable in their career values than couples in which one person is not in academia, the survey found, but the tendency for men to put themselves first lingers, even when the female partner earns more money.