Fisher Jill A, Tao Yu, Waltz Margaret, Monahan Torin
Department of Social Medicine and Center for Bioethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.
Womens Health Rep (New Rochelle). 2025 Aug 11;6(1):752-762. doi: 10.1177/26884844251366373. eCollection 2025.
More than one third of academics are coupled with another academic, with more women being in such dual-career relationships. Little is known about how these couples' experiences affect their attrition from or persistence in academia.
We analyzed survey data of academics at 100 U.S. colleges and universities to answer two research questions: (1) Among all academic partners, who are the most likely to abandon their desired academic careers in terms of their gender, race, and field? (2) What effects does leaving academia have on those partners' career outcomes?
We found that 22% of aspiring academics in academic relationships leave that career pathway. One third leave for personal reasons, including to prioritize their partner's career. When partners leave academia for personal reasons, they are less likely to be employed in any job and, when employed, are paid less than their counterparts who leave academia for professional reasons. Among our results, we found notable gender differences. Compared with men, women in medicine were more likely to leave academia for personal reasons. Moreover, the earnings of women who leave academia due to personal reasons are the most negatively impacted.
These trends indicate that the choices made by dual-career couples in response to the academic job market and to universities' policies for partner hiring have substantial effects on the demographic makeup of academic research and scholarship. By supporting the needs of academic couples, universities have the opportunity to make their own institutions more diverse and to patch a hole in the leaky pipeline.
超过三分之一的学者与另一位学者结成伴侣，其中处于这种双职业关系的女性更多。对于这些伴侣的经历如何影响他们在学术界的流失或留存情况，我们知之甚少。
我们分析了美国100所学院和大学的学者调查数据，以回答两个研究问题：（1）在所有学术伴侣中，就性别、种族和领域而言，哪些人最有可能放弃他们理想的学术职业？（2）离开学术界对那些伴侣的职业成果有什么影响？
我们发现，处于学术关系中的有抱负的学者中有22%离开了那条职业道路。三分之一的人因个人原因离开，包括将伴侣的职业置于优先地位。当伴侣因个人原因离开学术界时，他们受雇于任何工作的可能性较小，而且即使受雇，薪酬也低于因职业原因离开学术界的同行。在我们的研究结果中，我们发现了显著的性别差异。与男性相比，医学领域的女性更有可能因个人原因离开学术界。此外，因个人原因离开学术界的女性收入受到的负面影响最大。
这些趋势表明，双职业夫妇应对学术就业市场和大学伴侣招聘政策所做出的选择，对学术研究和学术成果的人员构成有重大影响。通过支持学术夫妇的需求，大学有机会使自己的机构更加多元化，并填补人才流失管道上的一个漏洞。
