Yeah, I think #2 is the clear winner- get the degree, attract the high quality mate, then have the kids- with a modification. You don’t want to encourage your child to have kids until they’ve found a high quality mate, because if they have kids when they’re a teenager that will lower their lifetime prospects.
There’s a difference between encouraging kids to have children, and encouraging them to imagine having children after they’ve got good odds of being able to take care of them well.
I think #2 may be correct for men (mostly), but less so for women where a late baby break likely sets back your career more than the delay due to having a small child early e.g. during university. And most careers go significantly beyond menopause.
less so for women where a late baby break likely sets back your career more than the delay due to having a small child early e.g. during university
In practice having a small child during university usually leads to dropping out of university. Anecdotally, I’m in university currently and cannot imagine having to take care of a small child when I’m already struggling to get 8 hours of sleep a night just doing my schoolwork, internship hunt and extracurriculars. From my vantage point having a child while young and unmarried in university seems like a much, much more career (and life) destroying move than having a child in one’s early thirties with a co-parent, even in a career like academia where that coincides with the race for tenure. Elaborate on why you think the opposite?
Cultural bias I guess. In Germany part time story with children is quite possible. There are special rules for it. And the competition at university doesn’t seem to be as strong as in the US. My sister has too small girls and does study in education, so this is not hearsay.
Yeah, I think #2 is the clear winner- get the degree, attract the high quality mate, then have the kids- with a modification. You don’t want to encourage your child to have kids until they’ve found a high quality mate, because if they have kids when they’re a teenager that will lower their lifetime prospects.
There’s a difference between encouraging kids to have children, and encouraging them to imagine having children after they’ve got good odds of being able to take care of them well.
I think #2 may be correct for men (mostly), but less so for women where a late baby break likely sets back your career more than the delay due to having a small child early e.g. during university. And most careers go significantly beyond menopause.
In practice having a small child during university usually leads to dropping out of university. Anecdotally, I’m in university currently and cannot imagine having to take care of a small child when I’m already struggling to get 8 hours of sleep a night just doing my schoolwork, internship hunt and extracurriculars. From my vantage point having a child while young and unmarried in university seems like a much, much more career (and life) destroying move than having a child in one’s early thirties with a co-parent, even in a career like academia where that coincides with the race for tenure. Elaborate on why you think the opposite?
Cultural bias I guess. In Germany part time story with children is quite possible. There are special rules for it. And the competition at university doesn’t seem to be as strong as in the US. My sister has too small girls and does study in education, so this is not hearsay.