Academic mothers face career-family conflict amid fertility taboo

Academia's fertility and parenthood taboo

Academia's intense pressure often forces researchers to choose between career advancement and starting a family, a conflict explored in the latest episode of the Nature Careers "Off Limits" podcast. Biological anthropologist Alison Behie described undergoing multiple rounds of IVF in her late 30s while managing her academic duties, a process she felt compelled to keep secret from most colleagues.

"The primary feeling was just this guilt that I had prioritized trying to get where I was in my career over my family," Behie told host Adam Levy. "That’s not a way anyone should ever feel." She is now head of the school of archaeology and anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The precarity of early career parenthood

The struggle is often most acute for early-career researchers on temporary contracts. Karen Jones, who studies gender equality in higher education at the University of Reading, UK, notes this precarity coincides with prime childbearing years.

"It’s not uncommon for people to be employed on one temporary contract after another possibly for several years," Jones said. "And this often coincides with the age at which people are making decisions about having a family." This instability can jeopardize access to maternity benefits, which often require returning to work for a set period.

Jones's research surveyed 553 academic mothers. It found 69% performed core academic work during their maternity leave, driven by fear for their careers. Many described a pressure to maintain productivity that felt incompatible with new parenthood.

The hidden emotional toll

The emotional burden extends to those who are involuntarily childless. Wendy Dossett, a professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Chester, UK, felt her situation was misunderstood by peers.

"I suffered a bit from the assumption that I must be a child-free career woman, when, in truth, I was a broken-hearted, childless woman," Dossett said. She described "hanging on in academia by my fingernails at that point."

For Behie, the isolation was compounded by her expertise. As a researcher, she dove into medical literature during her IVF journey, which she says provided more false hope than comfort. "I think it probably got bogged down a little bit too much in data and studies, versus just letting myself actually be the patient," she reflected.

Systemic pressures and potential solutions

The culture of constant productivity creates a hostile environment for parents. Jones points to a fundamental mismatch between academic demands and the realities of raising children, particularly in the early career stage focused on publishing and grant-writing.

Key systemic issues identified by the researchers include:

• Inflexible medical leave policies that don't account for the physical and emotional toll of fertility treatments.
• Lack of support from line managers, with many women reporting punitive measures after taking leave.
• No clear "returner schemes" to help academics reintegrate after extended parental leave.
• The prevalence of temporary contracts that undermine job and benefit security for starting families.

Jones advocates for better training for managers and a serious reckoning with maternal health statistics, noting suicide is a leading cause of maternal death postpartum. "It’s so important to recognize that women who’ve had a child are going through a significant critical life event," she said.

Impact on career paths and retention

These pressures influence major life and career decisions. Former academic Ashley Ruba, now a UX researcher at Meta, cited family planning as a factor in leaving academia. "It just didn’t seem like I could do both at the same time," she said.

The challenge also affects men. Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, author of Failing Families, Failing Science, cited research showing young men in science often have fewer children than they desire due to career demands. "Some leave science because of that reason," she noted.

Behie believes the silence is slowly breaking, helped by social media where women share fertility journeys in real time. She hopes for more institutional flexibility. "I would just love to see a little bit more leniency and forgiveness around things like medical leave," she said, emphasizing that the process of IVF itself is a taxing medical condition, regardless of the outcome.