Does marriage sink a scientific career?

Or your sephadex column, back in my lab days. Interesting quotes, ehBeth. Seems to me there is a Young Turks thing that goes on in many fields, and then people equilibrate for the long haul; some even gear up.

Wonder if they are plotting relative enthusiasm over years, as some people get married more than once.. and certainly have romances/liasons in many patterns. Oh, think of the scientific papers...

It's the complete opposite of what I'd expected.

I'm wondering if that (my expectation) is based on when I grew up, when there were career wives - and a man's career was thought to be dependent, to some degree, on what kind of hostess their wife was.

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I wanted to be a military wife. Help my husband become a general, or somethin'.

Good thing I didn't do it. It'd have been a career-ender for some poor fella.

Me too.

I seem to vaguely recall the same, osso. That is, if a scientist is going to make a name for himself, it's usually done by age 30, or not at all. As I recall, marriage wasn't mentioned.

Hhmmm.. but then, what about Soz's husband?

Yeh, Roger, that matches my memory of it all. Many of our most involved research docs were married, one with eight children. 'course by then he was over thirty.

A scientist cannot have a life and be successful.*

That has a lot of implications.

*(Though that depends somewhat on the definition of "successful.")

I'll expand (this is a subject that interests me a lot).

I think the whole "find a mate" thing is really a red herring. I think it is simply that the requirements for success in most scientific fields I'm aware of are incompatible with having a balanced life. My husband is married and has a kid, but he works at least 80 hours a week; he hasn't taken a vacation in 10 years (and that was his honeymoon); usually works 7 days a week; travels for his job about once a month; and doesn't take sick days unless he's in the hospital. Now, none of this is enforced from above, it's his own decision, and it's paying off for him, big-time. He's definitely moving up very quickly, to the point where I've stopped saying anything specific about his work 'cause soon enough it's really quite possible that y'all will have heard of him. (No, he's not Stephen Hawking. ;-))

He has a colleague who has purposely decided on balance over success -- he has tenure, and he goes to work at 7 and leaves at 3, and cranks out the occasional paper, and has accepted that his career is stalled and that his best work is behind him as a consequence of being able to spend more time with his family. It's a conscious choice he's made.

Many married scientists simply don't have spouses who would put up with the kind of hours my husband puts in -- I don't like it either, but before we had a kid it suited me just fine (I worked almost as ridiculous hours myself, and I liked having some down time on my own on top of that), and by the time we had a kid I'd been dealing with it for 8 years and knew what to expect and decided to go for it anyway.

We (E.G. and I) have had a lot of conversations about this in terms of the difficulties that female scientists face. They, as a group, are less likely to accept not having a life. The problem is, though, the people who have the balanced lives are competing against those who have no lives -- and there are a lot of them. In that competition, unless the person with a life is extraordinarily skilled (which happens), the no-lives are going to win every time, and the have-lives are going to have a hard time continuing in their field; publishing, getting a good job, getting tenure, etc.

There are a lot of reasons for all of this. Part of it is that science (most fields) is a game of inspiration -- if you're working on something, if something is coming together, it's not so simple as putting it aside and coming back to it later. That has to be pursued before the inspiration disappears. It's almost like an artist in that way. Again depending on the field, and whether it's a theorist or experimentalist, clocks usually have no particular meaning. Work continues until the paper is finished, with breaks for food and sleep. Then when that paper is finished, another is begun.

There are so many other aspects -- for example, people usually push push push until tenure. When they get tenure, where they are at that point has a lot to do with what happens next. Someone who has already become successful might have a good stable of skilled postdocs, and can continue to become more successful/ famous/ influential by writing papers with them -- it becomes much simpler at that point, because the tenured professor can crank out ideas while the postdocs do the grunt work. So the most elite scientists can keep getting more and more productive after tenure, and may even have a balanced life at that point -- but they usually had to work like hell to get there.

EhBeth's point about wives as hostesses is an interesting one too, but I'll stop for now. :-)

Does marriage sink a scientific career?

Not necessarily. I have married friends who are both scientists and
they both spend horrible long hours at work. She's aiming for tenure
which hasn't happened yet and he has left academia for the private
sector - not less demanding if not more. They've been married for over
15 years but don't have children, as neither wanted to take a break.

So it's doable, the question is: at what price?

Re: Does marriage sink a scientific career?


Well, for the last twenty years I've been thinking about this line from a French song:

- Avant ta peau j'avais du talent..
(I had a talent, before your skin).

What about the Curies?

The husband got run over by a truck if I recall correctly and madam went on to an illustrious career.


I think in part it depends upon the science and the state the science is in at any particular time. If the science is going through a radical paradigm change it is the time for young people to make there mark and marriage may be a hinderance. If the science is in a period of relative paradigm stability then your ability to work within the conventional thinking is important and marriage may not be such a hinderance. In some sciences, such as archaeology and many of the other social sciences, the accumulation of knowledge is important and many of the more productive scientists are older.

The most prolific psychology professor at T's school was a gentleman that kept a balance in his life.

But he was the most prolific because he gave his students first authorship, actually allowed them to complete their dissertations, and allowed them to graduate. You wouldn't believe the number of students that jumped from another professor's lab over to his....



They met for dinner recently and had an interesting discussion regarding women getting advanced degrees, the impact on society, and whether such education is "wasted" as has been advanced in some circles. Needless to say, both were appalled at the very idea, but he sent a very thoughtful E-mail that I shall have to dig up.

It all depends of the two who are married.

There are marriages that enhance careers,
like in all other professional careers.
A marriage can be a source of emotional stability.

Interesting thread, ehBeth. I went to the archives and found this about Dr. Pavlov:



Pavlov nurtured a great school of physiologists, which produced many distinguished pupils. He left the richest scientific legacy - a brilliant group of pupils, who would continue developing the ideas of their master, and a host of followers all over the world.

In 1881, Pavlov married Seraphima (Sara) Vasilievna Karchevskaya, a teacher, the daughter of a doctor in the Black Sea fleet. She first had a miscarriage, said to be due to her having to run after her very fast-walking husband. Subsequently they had a son, Wirchik, who died very suddenly as a child; three sons, Vladimir, Victor and Vsevolod, one of whom was a well-known physicist and professor of physics at Leningrad in 1925, and a daughter, Vera.

Interesting thread, bookmark.

This is a wonderful topic
It is wonderful because it represents the greatest dilemma of my so far brief life: become a scientist or a person who manages and works with people, with human beings?

What I'm going to portray might sound a bit shallow and even silly to you grown-ups but I would like to present my microcosmic version analogue to the situation exposed on this thread.

I am 19 and must choose what to study at university It would be easy for a person who focused his studies on a narrow field to say directly what he really likes, yet I harvested great enthusiasm towards both of two totally opposing ways of life: that of a "scientist" and that of a "manager"(or any person who is involved with people, and requires great social skills, charisma, politics, business etc. you understand what I mean).
Until the age of 16 I used to be a total "nerd", "without a life" and had the highest grades not only in science subjects but all fifteen subjects in my school. The drawback I never felt was the fact that I didn't have a social life, nearly no friends, never kissed a girlfriend, etc.
I simply liked what I did, and as a previous poster said, the fact that there were no interruptions to this continued study, this continued effort and work probably helped me to go on.
There was no balance between social life and spiritual/study life: I focused only on the latter and - I'm not saying this to boast - I used to be a genius.
And I continued that lifestyle, and probably would still be continuing it with full confidence if I hadn't had a taste of what "social life"/"real life" means.
Infact, there was a period of just a few weeks during which I tried to expand - not change! - and used my enthusiastic effort to carry out some business model and public relations projects which heavily relied on people.
It seriously took me only a good full immersion in business success books, personal growth and social skill DYI books to suddenly become a "nerd" of social skills. I know this sounds freaky and banal, but at that time I really thought that I was studying something and not entering what's commonly called "having a life".
To apply what I learned in such books, I did it with the same effort I would have studied to get an A+ in mathematics.
And, folks - believe me or not - it worked and it seemed as if I was becoming some charismatic god or something (that's how I felt when I was 16, at my first contact with other humans ). With time I obviously learned also the value of modesty and humbleness, but that small simple change made me have what I would have never ever thought of having before: girlfriends, the most beautiful, a role as an actor at a national theater, several assignments at real public relations tasks, and friends. Friends as I had never had before. A real exciting social life!
And you might think that those events "completed" me as a human being?
No. Just as the married scientists on the first post of this thread, I probably became too satisfied with what I had achieved.
And sometimes satisfaction can stagnate a person's motivation to go on.
For a long time I actually thought that I had combined two lifestyles into one, but I realized after lot of pain that I was suddenly loosing all my scientific "talents" (if talents truly exist, I fervently believe that I had them. Because now I don't understand anything).
I was becoming an average student and understood my new "self" only when I got my first bad mark in maths.
I realized that I was too lazy to stay in front of the computer or books to study all the time and work with chemical formulas. I realized that I was actually scared to stay alone. Whenever I tried not to go to parties or stay with my girlfriend, I couldn't resist logging onto internet forums or MSN messenger - behaviours I never had when I used to be a "nerd".
I was becoming "people-dependent"! I couldn't live without a social life.
I actually complained these symptoms to the writers of all those self-help books and they told "come on mate, that's normal! that's life! enjoy the balance you have!".
I won't tell other details because otherwise I'll monopolize this thread, which is not my intention.
What I'm trying to say is: according to my experience it's damn hard to excel at both science-work and "having a life". You can excell in either one of them or have a balance in which you're only averagely good.
There are surely exceptions in the world out there, and success is, as the first poster said, surely a subjective term... but "the nerd inside me" , the peaceful perfectionist I once used to be is telling me that I won't be truly satisfied if I don't excel in one or the other field.
Once I lived happily without even having one real friend (apart from my hamster... now I'm addicted to humans, if that's a politically correct term.
And when I'm addicted to humans, I can hardly think constantly about lightwaves, thermodynamics and fluids... but I can very well manage other people, speak publicly about the conditions of the world, organize humanitarian aid to tsunami victims, conduct a business project, and every other thing that has to do with... humans.
Yet, I must admit that I deeply miss my brilliance in natural sciences...
and that's my current dilemma: go back to my nat sciences, or live in the "real life"? Study astrophysics or economics?

This was my contribution to this thread, and I don't want it to come through as a vanity boast - we're online people who don't care about image and approval - and we do everything possible to be objective and sincere, right?