Do Babies Matter? The Effect of Family Formation on the Lifelong Careers of Academic Men and Woman

Abstract

When I first became the Dean of the Graduate Division at Berkeley last year, I had an extraordinary experience. Fifty-one percent of the 2,500 new graduate students whom I welcomed were women. Thirty-five years ago that number would have been closer to 10%. The students I welcomed included not only doctoral students, but also graduate students seeking professional degrees in law, public health, social welfare, optometry, etc. On the Berkeley campus there is no medical school, but if there were, women would be close to the majority in that profession as well.