Galina Hale

UC Santa Cruz

I did something unusual, I got pregnant while (early) in my PhD program. I had no external financial support, my husband at the time was also a PhD student, so TAing or RAing was the only way for us to survive. Maternity leave for PhD students? Did anybody ever even think about this? I never thought to ask and nobody ever offered any accommodations. Has this changed since nearly 30 years ago?

Challenges

Did you know that a woman’s brain literally shrinks during pregnancy? A neuroscientist told me. So the paper I wrote during my first two trimesters was not so great. One of my advisors commented: “Now that you have a peace of mind, it is time to start working on your dissertation.” Third trimester? I basically could not sleep for about 3 months, and that’s before the baby was born. This increased the extensive margin of my productivity, as I would work instead of trying to fall asleep, but definitely hurt the intensive margin. So this is an academic year for you - 9 months before the child is born - definitely lost to research.

Luckily my son (now almost 28) was born in June, so the first two months of his life I did not have to teach. I remember just finishing my RA work for Maury Obstfeld, helping to revise his undergraduate textbook. I literally sent all the deliverables to Maury on a Friday with a “see you Monday” note and went into labor the next day (and e-mailing “won’t see you Monday”). So, might ask a man, you were able to work on your dissertation during the summer? Oh, no. Many women talk about physical challenges of pregnancy and early motherhood. Not many talk about post-partum depression. Prior to childbirth, I never experienced anything like it, and I was not particularly well informed about the effects of hormonal changes on mental health. Add sleep deprivation. The two summer months after my son was born I was not able to do any work at all.

When the school year started, my husband and I were assigned our TA jobs and while we managed to have our discussion sessions scheduled in an non-overlapping way, there was very little flexibility. Even though I only wanted to work 50% so that I could return to my research, I was assigned a 75% position and nothing could be done about it (union contract had no provisions for new mothers). Margin of adjustment? Dissertation work. Easily another year.

Result: even though I had a master’s degree before entering the PhD program and I completed the coursework about a year ahead of the normal schedule, which would put me on the 4-year graduation path, it took me 6 years to graduate. That’s an observation for your dataset: +2 years.

Redeeming factors

First, I was oh-so-young and very healthy and healthwise my pregnancy was super easy. My labor was super fast and I delivered without any meds (not recommended) and only minor complications. I was home 2 days later.

Second, there was a lot of community support. We already moved to family student housing so there were a lot of hand-me-down baby appliances, clothes, etc. so we did not really struggle financially. Up until we graduated, we lived in various family student housing apartments, always surrounded by families with small kids. It was great for kids and it was great for us because there was always someone watching the kids playing outside. Also, many classmates were more than willing to “babysit the sleeping door” so that we could occasionally go out. We never paid a penny for babysitting. We had a village.

Most importantly, I was not alone throughout! Two of my fellow econ PhD students had babies at about the same time, weeks if not days apart. It was actually kind of fund to have three pregnant grad students in the department at the same time. We did not coordinate, this was pure luck. So, we were able to rearrange our TA offices so that me, my husband, and my friend were assigned to the same office. There, we established a playpen, put two babies in it, got a baby monitor so that we can go and work in a computer room (no laptops yet back then). Economies of scale! My son did not even go to the daycare for the first year of his life and I was able to breastfeed for over 6 months.

Third, productivity margins completely flipped. I had to work in 1-2 hour segments between feeding, teaching, shopping, cooking, doing laundry, etc. My per-hour productivity went through the roof. My friends could not recognize me - normally quite a friendly and chatty person I became quite rude in telling my friends to not talk to me because I only have an hour to do whatever I needed to do. I am very grateful to my many friends who did not hold it against me and are still my friends.

After

I don’t want to go into details of what it’s like to have a marriage fall apart while having an elementary school child. Let’s just say it takes time: custody hearings, mediation, couples therapy, personal therapy. At some point I told my therapist that the most stressful thing in my life was having to keep an appointment with him. All that with separation that meant 100% of household management, 50% single-parenting, and a huge coordination problem. And inevitable mental health impacts. I was working at the Fed at a time and was able to arrange 9-3 work on single-parent days compensated by 8-whenever work on other days. The year was 2008, by the way, so policy work was a-plenty. There is no doubt that a childless divorce would take a lot less time and a lot less toll on my research output. There, math is hard because of publication lags, but in 4 years between 2010 and 2013 I had 4 publications. In the following 4 years, 2014-2017 I had 7. Call it two years?

Have you seen those happiness studies that show that households with children are less happy than those without until about the time kids leave home, and then it flips? I think academic productivity may follow the same pattern. While children are at home, parents’ necessarily have split focus, multiple goals, time commitments. It’s a good thing on balance, I think. But when children are completely grown and independent, there are no time constraints or split focus. I enjoy being able to work late or on weekends, because I like what I do. Oh, and no stress of financial commitments once you’ve paid for college. Is it the same for men and women? I don’t know. But I think my math even without this comes to about 4 years. Not one.