Parents on the Job Market: Resources and Strategies That Help Sociologists Attain Tenure-Track Jobs

• Published in: The American sociologist Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 29 - 49
• Main Authors: Kennelly, Ivy, Spalter-Roth, Roberta M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Secaucus, NJ Transaction Periodicals Consortium 01.12.2006; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic Tenure; Birth spacing; Children; College Faculty; Doctoral Degrees; Doctoral Programs; Economic sociology; Employment Opportunities; Faculty publishing; Females; Gender Issues; Graduate schools; Graduate Students; Labor market; Labour market; Longitudinal Studies; Men; Mothers; Occupational Status; Parenthood; Parents; Parents & parenting; Prestige; Research universities; Sociologists; Sociology; Sociology Education; Sociology of work; Sociology of work and sociology of organizations; Strategic planning; Strategies; Tenure; Universities; Working Mothers; Working population. Employment. Women's work; Working women; Labor Market; Higher Education; Employment; Parent; Strategy; Motherhood; Job Search
• ISSN: 0003-1232; 1936-4784
• DOI: 10.1007/BF02915066

Do women and men who have children during graduate school have access to the same institutional resources as non-parents? In the face of two greedy institutions, the academy and parenthood (especially motherhood), do they employ the same sorts of strategies in their quest to attain tenure-track jobs, and are those strategies successful? In this study we use a longitudinal survey of sociology Ph.D.s to investigate the availability and use of three types of resources and strategies during graduate school, and find that they all have important effects on the chances of obtaining a tenure-track position at a research or doctoral university. We find that some institutional resources are not equally distributed in graduate school, with mother's least likely to obtain them, but are significant for attainment of tenure-track positions. Resource-based strategies, including presenting papers and publishing articles while in graduate school, have a positive and significant effect on all groups' attainment of tenure-track positions. Family-based strategies such as child-spacing strategies are also significant; women who have children during graduate school have lower odds of immediately obtaining tenure-track jobs at research and doctoral universities, although access to resources and the ability to use these resources helps significantly.