Michelle Thaller
The Two-Body Problem: Dual-Career Scientist Couples
One of the classic Ph.D. exam questions for astronomers is called the Two-Body Problem. I got this one myself. Standing nervously before my thesis committee, chalk in hand, I was asked to solve the mathematics of the orbits that two bodies (planets or stars, for example) take as they revolve around each other.
It's pretty tricky. As one body orbits the other, it tugs gravitationally on its partner, altering the original orbit. Then the second body does the same. In the end, there's this give-and-take of a dance, as each body influences the other, constantly changing its path. The bigger, more massive body moves the least, spending most of the time in the center of this dance. The smaller body has to careen all over the place, trying to find the right place to fit into the co-orbit.
Many scientists see a poignant parallel between this celestial mechanics problem and the lives of dual career couples (and in fact, the "two-body problem" is now slang for the challenges facing scientist couples). In all aspects of our society, people are trying to work out how to keep a marriage together (even raise children), when both parties work outside the home. Scientists face their own unique set of problems trying to work out a dual-career marriage, and it comes as no surprise to anyone that it is usually the women's careers that suffer the most.
The good news is that some institutions are actively trying to address this issue, realizing that many good scientists will be lost to the discipline unless something is done.
People have many misconceptions about scientists, but the image of coddled, gentile, gentlemen-scholars who sit smugly in nice offices and debate the meaning of life is one I find especially amusing. Some of these folks do exist (very few, actually, even at places like Harvard), but for the most part, scientists scramble to make ends meet.
Most research appointments last for only three to five years (with little chance of renewal), after which time you have to pick up yourself and any family you've accrued, and pound the pavement to find a new job. Pay is low, which makes it difficult to finance the massive student debt most young scientists are straddled with.
And scientists are usually terribly specialized, making it hard to be flexible. I did my thesis on the interacting atmospheres of massive stars, something that maybe only a dozen institutions around the country have any interest in. Also, astronomy departments usually only have one job opening at a time, meaning that even if one spouse lands a job, the other will almost always have to look elsewhere for a position. Thus most dual-scientist couples spend long stretches of time working in different cities, if not states or even countries (my husband and I spent the first five years of our relationship commuting between the U.S. and Australia).
Of course, couples bring this on themselves. Everyone knows the difficulties of trying to manage two science careers, but we're still an awfully incestuous bunch. Scientists, to put it mildly, don't get out much. We feel most comfortable around other scientists, who share common priorities, world-views, and attitudes about life. Not that my husband and I spend every dinner-time conversation debating the relative virtues of quantum mechanics versus general relativity, but we do spend many evenings talking about our work and our passion: science.
The statistics are staggering, especially for women. Among married women scientists, a full 80% are married to other scientists. Men are a bit more open to diverse relationships, it seems, as only 20% of married men scientists have a scientist mate.
This fact alone suggests that trying to juggle two-career marriages may be one of the major hurdles women scientists have to overcome. Almost every married woman scientist will have to make compromises between her career and her husband's, but there's a more subtle, insidious disadvantage women face; women tend to marry men older than themselves. For whatever reason, women tend to marry men at least three years older than themselves.
My husband is fourteen years older than I am. That means that his career has a fourteen year lead. When we considered where to settle (and who's career to favor), it was an easy choice. He could get a more prestigious, higher-paying job that I could, based on seniority alone. As a couple, that means we had more resources and stability, and that's a hard thing to pass over in favor of the kind of temporary, low paying job I could expect to get at this point in my career.
In the end, I took a job at the same location as my husband that was outside of my research field, and in fact not even on the path to any kind of high-ranking science career. I made that decision myself, and take full responsibility for it. But can I honestly say I never feel an ounce of resentment? My husband's first wife was also an astronomer who left the field to follow his career. He blames the resulting tension as one of the reasons for their divorce, and he has confided in me that he occasionally wonders if he's been personally responsible for ruining the careers of two promising astronomers.
So what's being done about this conundrum?
Like any issue, there are good ways and bad ways of dealing with it, and academic institutions fill the entire spectrum. On the bad side, many young scientists (both men and women) are seeing their marketability reduced when they marry another scientist. Universities know that dual-career couples may have to pick up and move at short notice if a spouse finds a better job. Why invest in a person who might leave half way through the school year?
Many young women are being asked uncomfortable (and actually illegal) questions about whether they intend to become pregnant. You can't write a lot of research grants when you're on maternity leave, and everyone knows that children will take energy and time that might best be used winning the department more money, after all.
It's still the case that many old-guard department chairs think a man will have a wife at home to care for children, leaving him enough time to dedicate to his career. But a pregnant woman scientist? What chance does she have to keep up in this competitive, fast-moving world? This reasoning is terribly outmoded, as so many men are pressing for paternity leave and more consideration for their parenting duties, but attitudes and prejudices change slowly among older, established (and mostly male) professors.
But on the other side, there are several world-class institutions that have decided not to ignore the situation, and even try to make it easier on dual-career couples. The solutions aren't perfect, but I'm profoundly impressed that some universities are beginning to admit that there might be something more important (like a marriage and family), than academic advancement at any price.
Several universities are now offering joint, or "shared" appointments. The idea goes something like this: instead of hiring one person to fill a position, the university officially hires a couple. It's sort of a get-two-for-the-price-of-one. The couple still only gets one salary, but each person is expected to work only half time. That frees up time to either take on more teaching or grant-writing for added income, or allows one parent to be at home at all times with the children (saving the considerable cost of child care). Both spouses receive the prestige of an academic appointment, and both should (theoretically) be in line for further promotions and career advancement.
The disadvantages to this scheme are primarily financial, although there is still some question as to which spouse is "riding the coat-tails" of the other. Which spouse was the university really after when it offered them a joint position? And the truth is, of course, that a department will always get more work out of two people than one. Each partner might officially be working half time, but in reality, no scientist calculates exactly when to go home after finishing half a day's work. In the end, the university really does get two good scientists for the price of one.
But at least it's a start, and some institutions are taking it a step further. The University of Wisconsin, for example, now has an official Spousal Hire Program. A university office has been specifically charged with helping place academic spouses, either at the university or in local industry.
Several other universities, such as Purdue, UC-Davis, and the University of Illinois, are using administrative funds to augment the salaries of dual-career couples. Even more important, these institutions are formulating policy to deal with the realities of two-career couples. If one spouse gets promoted above the other, is there a nepotism problem? How do you assess promotions and awards when couples are sharing grants, even writing papers together? These questions are uncomfortable and difficult to solve, but these universities have made the huge decision not to ignore the problem.
These issues, and the challenges of two-career couples, just aren't going away. It's one thing to pay lip-service to women's rights and the importance of families, and quite another to take an active stance and make it actually possible for women to start leveling the playing field. Real, hard-working couples trying to balance each other's careers, as well as the well-being of their children, are not the traditional image of scientists. But that's the reality, and it's high time the profession of science stopped hiding its head in the sand.