The new generation of scholars differs in many ways from its predecessor of just a few decades ago. Academia once consisted largely of men in traditional single-earner families. Today, men and women fill the doctoral student ranks in nearly equal numbers and most will experience both the benefits and challenges of living in dual-income households. This generation also has new expectations and values, notably the desire for flexibility and balance between careers and other life goals. However, changes to the structure and culture of academia have not kept pace with young scholars’ desires for work-family balance.

Do Babies Matter? is the first comprehensive examination of the relationship between family formation and the academic careers of men and women. The book begins with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, moves on to early and mid-career years, and ends with retirement. Individual chapters examine graduate school, how recent PhD recipients get into the academic game, the tenure process, and life after tenure. The authors explore the family sacrifices women often have to make to get ahead in academia and consider how gender and family interact to affect promotion to full professor, salaries, and retirement. Concrete strategies are suggested for transforming the university into a family-friendly environment at every career stage.

The book draws on over a decade of research using unprecedented data resources, including the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, a nationally representative panel survey of PhDs in America, and multiple surveys of faculty and graduate students at the ten-campus University of California system.

MARY ANN MASON is Professor of the Graduate School and Faculty Codirector of the Berkeley Law Earl Warren Institute for Law and Social Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Mothers on the Fast Track: How the New Generation Can Balance Career and Family and coeditor of All Our Families: New Policies for the New Century, Second Edition.

NICHOLAS H. WOLFINGER is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah. He is the author of Understanding the Divorce Cycle, and coeditor of Fragile Families and the Marriage Agenda.

MARC GOULDEN is the director of data initiatives at the University of California at Berkeley.