The best time to become a parent: The relationship between tenure and fertility among academics

The interplay between career progression and fertility remains a central theme in the scholarly debate on academia. Past research has largely examined the influence of parenthood on academic careers, revealing a motherhood penalty for women and mixed results for men. The converse—whether and how career advancements shape fertility decisions—remains underexplored. This contribution pioneers the study of the relationship between academic career progression, specifically tenure attainment, and fertility for academic women and men. Drawing on unique primary data from a large sample of Italian academics, this study employs discrete-time event-history models to analyze transitions to first and second childbirths, and logistic regression models to assess short-term fertility intentions by career stage and gender. Results reveal that job stability facilitates the transition to parenthood: tenure significantly increases the hazard of becoming a parent for men and, when obtained before age 35, for women. Tenure also significantly boosts short-term fertility intentions among childless women. Instead, tenure is unrelated to the transition to a second birth for either women or men. The positive association between tenure and fertility raises important concerns. Gender differences in the upper age limits to fecundity translate into shorter reproductive lifespans for women than for men. In academia, these differences are exacerbated by women’s later age of promotion compared to men. This results in a considerably shorter post-tenure fertility window for women, leading to higher rates of childlessness and lower fertility compared to men. Policies aimed at reducing gender disparities in academia should address these differences in fertility by supporting academic women in transitioning to parenthood.