The Nonlinear Library EA - How much parenting harms productivity and how you can reduce it by Nicholas Kruus
Feb 26, 2024
05:33
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How much parenting harms productivity and how you can reduce it, published by Nicholas Kruus on February 26, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Intro
Many EAs factor children's effects on their personal impact when deciding whether to have them (
example). To offer some insight for potential parents, I tried to summarize the best research I could find on parenthood's impact on people's productivity, though I was surprised at the lack of robust literature (especially more recently). The following information comes from four studies: one published in
Science[1], one published in
Nature[2], one from the
Federal Reserve of St. Louis[3], and one published in
Social Studies of Science[4]. They all focus on academics and quantitatively measure productivity with research output metrics (the footnotes contain more detail about each).
How parenting impacts productivity
TLDR: The trend for having one child seems to be a short-term reduction in productivity (median: 17%, mean: ~23%) for mothers that peters out after ~10 years. There is usually little effect on fathers, but fathers who are primary caregivers (or otherwise more engaged with their children) suffer similar short-term (<10 year) productivity losses. Each additional child seems to decrease short-term productivity by an additional 11%.
Science:
Short-term (<10 years after having children):
Consistent effects on mothers: The paper finds a ~17%, ~24%, and ~48% decrease in productivity[1] for those in computer science, business, and history, respectively. The authors propose that the different levels of cooperation in these fields may explain the variation in productivity impact - i.e., those in more cooperative fields may suffer lower productivity losses.
They also note their results likely underestimate the effects because their sample didn't include parents who left academia (which may have been prompted by their children directly or indirectly)
Inconsistent effects on fathers lead the authors to conclude there is "no clear evidence" of a short-term productivity decrease for fathers.
Long-term (>10 years after having children):
Inconclusive results for both mothers and fathers.
Federal Reserve of St. Louis:
Short-term (<12 years after having children):
Women's productivity[3] decreased by 15%-17% on average. The total productivity cost of having one, two, or three preteens was 9.5%, 22%, and 33%.
"Men's productivity is not associated with their family situation in an economically significant manner."
Long-term (>12 years after having children):
Parenting has no effect on productivity for mothers or fathers, so long as they have their children on purpose after they turn 30 years old.
Social Studies of Science:
Overall:
8% and 12% decline in research productivity and visibility[4], respectively, for men and women combined. For women, the decrease was 15%.
To illustrate the cumulative effect of this, mothers were 2 years behind their childless counterparts in the number of papers they published 18 years after having their children.
How to minimize productivity impacts
Have kids later
Economists who become mothers before 30 suffer a 13% decrease in overall (short- & long-term) productivity[3], whereas those having children after 30 do not (
Fed of St. Louis).
Employment at an institution 100 ranks higher correlates with an additional 1-year delay before having children. However, this might be explained by personality: Perhaps, the type of people who wait to have children are the type of people who become employed at higher-ranked institutions (
Science).
Take parental leave
Taking parental leave shorter than 1 month does not mitigate productivity losses, but parental leave longer than 1 month and less than 12 months correlated with an 11%-17% productivity[2] improvement (
Nature).
Be a lazier parent and divide labor bet...
Intro
Many EAs factor children's effects on their personal impact when deciding whether to have them (
example). To offer some insight for potential parents, I tried to summarize the best research I could find on parenthood's impact on people's productivity, though I was surprised at the lack of robust literature (especially more recently). The following information comes from four studies: one published in
Science[1], one published in
Nature[2], one from the
Federal Reserve of St. Louis[3], and one published in
Social Studies of Science[4]. They all focus on academics and quantitatively measure productivity with research output metrics (the footnotes contain more detail about each).
How parenting impacts productivity
TLDR: The trend for having one child seems to be a short-term reduction in productivity (median: 17%, mean: ~23%) for mothers that peters out after ~10 years. There is usually little effect on fathers, but fathers who are primary caregivers (or otherwise more engaged with their children) suffer similar short-term (<10 year) productivity losses. Each additional child seems to decrease short-term productivity by an additional 11%.
Science:
Short-term (<10 years after having children):
Consistent effects on mothers: The paper finds a ~17%, ~24%, and ~48% decrease in productivity[1] for those in computer science, business, and history, respectively. The authors propose that the different levels of cooperation in these fields may explain the variation in productivity impact - i.e., those in more cooperative fields may suffer lower productivity losses.
They also note their results likely underestimate the effects because their sample didn't include parents who left academia (which may have been prompted by their children directly or indirectly)
Inconsistent effects on fathers lead the authors to conclude there is "no clear evidence" of a short-term productivity decrease for fathers.
Long-term (>10 years after having children):
Inconclusive results for both mothers and fathers.
Federal Reserve of St. Louis:
Short-term (<12 years after having children):
Women's productivity[3] decreased by 15%-17% on average. The total productivity cost of having one, two, or three preteens was 9.5%, 22%, and 33%.
"Men's productivity is not associated with their family situation in an economically significant manner."
Long-term (>12 years after having children):
Parenting has no effect on productivity for mothers or fathers, so long as they have their children on purpose after they turn 30 years old.
Social Studies of Science:
Overall:
8% and 12% decline in research productivity and visibility[4], respectively, for men and women combined. For women, the decrease was 15%.
To illustrate the cumulative effect of this, mothers were 2 years behind their childless counterparts in the number of papers they published 18 years after having their children.
How to minimize productivity impacts
Have kids later
Economists who become mothers before 30 suffer a 13% decrease in overall (short- & long-term) productivity[3], whereas those having children after 30 do not (
Fed of St. Louis).
Employment at an institution 100 ranks higher correlates with an additional 1-year delay before having children. However, this might be explained by personality: Perhaps, the type of people who wait to have children are the type of people who become employed at higher-ranked institutions (
Science).
Take parental leave
Taking parental leave shorter than 1 month does not mitigate productivity losses, but parental leave longer than 1 month and less than 12 months correlated with an 11%-17% productivity[2] improvement (
Nature).
Be a lazier parent and divide labor bet...