Alone in the Ivory Tower: How Birth Events Vary among Fast-Track Professionals

Nicholas H. Wolfinger, University of Utah
Mary Ann Mason, University of California, Berkeley
Marc Goulden, University of California, Berkeley

We use data from the 2000 Census Public Use Microsample to examine the likelihood of a birth event, defined as the household presence of a child aged zero or one, for male and female professionals. Physicians have the highest rate of birth events, followed in order by attorneys and academics. Within each profession men have more birth events than women. For men, professional variation in birth events can be explained by marital status, income, and spousal employment. These factors only partially account for professional differences in birth events for women.