The double penalty of class and gender: the research productivity of married female doctoral students

Gender gaps in research productivity have long been a concern, with caregiving responsibilities and family dynamics identified as key factors. This study utilizes data from the 2021 and 2023 surveys of Chinese PhD graduates to investigate how marital and parental status influence research productivity, with a particular focus on the compounded decline in productivity experienced by women after marriage and childbirth. To address potential biases, an instrumental variable (IV) approach is employed, revealing a self-selection effect: some female doctoral students may deliberately avoid parenthood due to inadequate support, thereby skewing observed outcomes. The results reveal that the “marriage benefit” is primarily observed among male PhD students, whose expected research output is 7.1% higher than that of their unmarried peers. In contrast, this benefit is absent for female PhD students, who instead face a significant “motherhood penalty”: the expected research output for married women with children declines by 30.7%. Moreover, socio-economic status (SES) significantly moderates this penalty. For married women with children, a higher SES background provides a substantial buffering effect; each one-unit increase in the SES score is associated with an additional productivity boost of 16.8% in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and 12.0% in Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). These findings underscore the need for institutional support, including flexible academic schedules, parental leave, and targeted financial support, to assist female doctoral students—especially those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds—in balancing academic and family responsibilities.