To Publish or Parent? Continued Childbearing among PhDs in Sweden, 1991–2005.

Maria A. Stanfors, Lund University

This paper studies the fertility of PhDs and explores how continued childbearing vary among men and women regarding to field of research. Previous research show that in Sweden, couples in which at least one partner is a PhD do not have the same problems of combining research and a family as peers in other countries. The determinants of second and higher-order births are analyzed multivariately using longitudinal data on couples from different population registers in Sweden, 1991–2005. Preliminary results indicate that field of research affects higher-order fertility in a highly gendered way, in line with hypotheses about how educational and occupational orientation may reflect work-family conflicts in different academic fields. The results also indicate that the couple context is very important as it reflects the relative power balance within the couple. Belonging to a dual-academic couples seem to have a mediating effect on the common found academic work-family incompatibility.