Breaks due to childcare are associated with lower wages for female physicians.
Career interruptions for childcare cost female physicians earning power, says a German study (A. Evers and M. Sieverding Psychol. Women Q. 38, 93–106; 2014). The authors surveyed medical students in 1989, asking in part about attitudes towards medical school. A poll of the same cohort 15 years later revealed that earnings correlate with career absences, not with the respondents' earlier outlook. Some 87% of the 47 female respondents reported absences of an average of 1.8 years, mostly for childcare; just under two-thirds of the 52 men reported absences of an average of 7.2 months, mainly for non-employment. Roughly 90% of men were earning more than €36,000 (US$49,440) a year, compared with 55% of women.
Related links
Related links
Related links in Nature Research
German university head lauds progress of women scientists
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Costs of childcare. Nature 507, 265 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7491-265d
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7491-265d