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.
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这本书最让我感到震撼的地方,在于它对“价值”这个概念的重新定义。它迫使我跳出“爱与责任”这种情感驱动的框架,去思考生育行为在宏观层面的经济学意义。书中对生育率下降与养老金体系、未来劳动力市场活力之间的联系进行了详细的推演,这些分析角度非常新颖,让我这个过去只关注眼前生活的人,开始对未来几十年的社会结构产生担忧。我特别欣赏作者处理复杂议题时的那种克制和理性,她没有陷入“恐慌式”的呼吁,而是冷静地展示了不同选择所带来的连锁反应。例如,她对比了那些积极鼓励生育的国家和采取放任态度的国家在社会保障体系上的差异和压力点,这种跨文化、跨制度的比较分析,极大地丰富了我对“生育决策”的理解。它不再仅仅是“我想要还是不想要”这么简单,而是涉及到对社会契约的重新协商。
评分读完这本书后,我的第一感受是,它远比书名暗示的要深刻和复杂。我原本以为这会是一本探讨如何平衡工作与育儿的具体技巧手册,或者充其量是一本略带煽情色彩的个人成长回忆录,但事实证明,作者的视野极其开阔,她似乎是在用一种近乎冷峻的社会学家的笔触,对我们这个时代关于生育的集体焦虑进行了一次彻底的解剖。其中有一章关于“隐性惩罚”的论述让我印象尤为深刻,作者详细描述了在职场环境中,即使是那些公开表示支持员工生育的组织,实际上是如何通过微妙的晋升机会的流失、关键项目的排除,来无形中惩罚那些选择生育的员工。这种惩罚往往是潜移默化的,难以被正式记录或申诉,却真实地改变了一个人的职业轨迹。这本书的写作风格非常有力,它不是在说教,而是在呈现事实和数据,用无可辩驳的逻辑链条,将个人困境置于更广阔的社会经济背景之下,让人不得不正视那些我们习惯性选择忽视的系统性问题。
评分这本书的语言有一种冷峻的诗意,尤其在描述那些被社会“看不见”的群体时。作者用了大量的篇幅去关注那些因为经济或个人原因,选择不生育,但却在社会中扮演着重要角色的群体——比如那些承担了大量照料工作(无论是照料年迈父母还是兄弟姐妹的孩子)的“无偿照料者”。她巧妙地将这些人的付出纳入了“社会贡献”的范畴,挑战了传统上将“生育后代”视为唯一“社会贡献”的狭隘定义。这种对边缘化群体的关注,让这本书超越了单纯的“生育焦虑”讨论,上升到了对“有意义的人生”的哲学探讨。读起来,我时常感到自己像是在参与一场深刻的社会辩论,作者是那个引导者,她不断地抛出挑战性的观点,要求我们放下既有的标签,重新审视我们社会运行的底层逻辑。
评分总而言之,阅读《Do Babies Matter?》的体验,更像是一次头脑风暴式的思想涤荡,而非轻松的睡前读物。这本书的结构组织非常精妙,每一个章节都像是一块拼图,最终拼凑出了一个关于现代社会生育困境的宏大图景。我尤其欣赏作者在总结时提出的那个观点:社会不应仅仅“鼓励”生育,而应该系统性地“支持”所有可能的生活选择。这本书的价值在于,它把一个常常被包裹在温情面纱下的私密选择,强行拉到了公共政策和经济分析的聚光灯下,进行了一次彻底的、不留情面的审视。对于任何一个在职业生涯中、在家庭规划中,或者仅仅是对社会趋势感到好奇的读者来说,这本书都提供了一套极其宝贵且富有启发性的分析框架。它会让你在读完很久之后,仍然会不由自主地在日常对话中,用书中的术语和视角去解构你听到的每一个关于“孩子”的论断。
评分这本《Do Babies Matter?》的书名确实引人深思,让人不禁好奇作者究竟想探讨哪些与“婴儿”有关的议题。我是在一个关于育儿与职业平衡的论坛上偶然看到有人推荐这本书的,当时的情境是大家在讨论,在当今快节奏的社会中,尤其对于职场女性而言,“要孩子”这件事究竟是个人选择还是社会压力下的必然产物。我立刻被这个标题抓住了,因为它没有直接给出答案,反而抛出了一个疑问,仿佛在挑战我们对“重要性”的传统认知。我当时正在经历一个职业瓶颈期,同时也在犹豫是否要组建家庭,所以这本书的内容似乎与我当时的心理状态高度契合。我期待它能提供一种全新的视角,去审视社会对“为人父母”这件事的期待,以及这种期待是如何影响我们个人生活的轨迹和决定的。我猜测,这本书也许会深入剖析那些我们习以为常的观念,比如“没有孩子的人生是不完整的”或者“事业与家庭不可兼得”这类论断,并试图从更宏大的人口学、社会学或者经济学的层面,来重新界定“婴儿”在当代社会结构中的实际地位和价值。
评分Being a Ph.D student is hard enough, let along being a married-mommy Ph.D student. # mommy-track vs. tenure track
评分Being a Ph.D student is hard enough, let along being a married-mommy Ph.D student. # mommy-track vs. tenure track
评分Being a Ph.D student is hard enough, let along being a married-mommy Ph.D student. # mommy-track vs. tenure track
评分Being a Ph.D student is hard enough, let along being a married-mommy Ph.D student. # mommy-track vs. tenure track
评分Being a Ph.D student is hard enough, let along being a married-mommy Ph.D student. # mommy-track vs. tenure track
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