Children, care time, career priority – What matters for junior scientists’ productivity and career perspective during the COVID-19 pandemic?

1.1COVID-19 pandemic: A career shock?

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly changed working life. The Dutch industrial and organizational psychologist Jos Akkermans [9] describes the pandemic as a career shock. Career shock means an event that occurs unexpectedly and suddenly, interrupts one’s previous working life, and causes intense reflection on one’s career. A career shock involves a dynamic interplay of individual and contextual factors that produces different effects and changes depending on the career and life stage. The authors distinguish between short- and long-term consequences and believe that even a negative career shock can show positive consequences in the long run [9]. Similarly, Cui and colleagues [10] refer to the COVID-19pandemic as an “exogenous shock” that would have a substantial impact on academic work. Teaching and research activities have to be reorganized in parallel with household activities and care work, while business travel is cancelled and meetings organized online. All this may impact on wellbeing and productivity differently in different persons and under different conditions, and may have impact on post-corona times [10–12].

1.2Gender-publication gap in science during the COVID-19 pandemic

An analysis of the most widely used open access repository for social sciences in America shows that ten weeks after the first lockdown, publication productivity increased by 35% overall in North America. But, the productivity of female scientists fell by 13.2% compared to their male colleagues during this period. This finding is especially true for postdocs (assistant professors) and at top-ranking universities [10]. Postdocs (assistant professors) are under great pressure to publish, especially at top-ranking universities, and at the same time are at an age when families are being started and there are children to care for. The study points out that female postdocs would show the sharpest drop in their research productivity after lockdown compared to male junior scientists [10]. Other studies support these findings: While male scientists have stable or increased number of papers, the productivity of female scientists with children and care time experienced a loss which supports the existing gender gap [10; 13–15]. In Germany, 37% of male and 57% of female senior scientists (professors) reported submitting fewer than planned for publication [16].

1.3Attitudes towards scientific career

Beside gender inequalities and publication changes, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have brought changes in career attitudes. In a qualitative interview study with 25 professionals who were mid-career and had experienced career shocks, it was found that any career shock can result in different voluntary or involuntary changes in professional perspectives [17].

In a U.S. study 329 second- and fifth-year doctoral students were asked about their career aspirations and priorities. Fifth year PhDs appeared more interested in non-academic careers than second year PhDs. Job security and salary appear to have become more important to them, especially after the initial peak of the pandemic March-May 2020 [18]. The way universities support their students through the pandemic and, for example, promote good communication, may have an impact on the attitudes of doctoral students [18].

Building on these findings, our aim was to investigate scientists’ behaviors and attitudes by considering publication behavior, prioritizing of scientific career, and family situation (children, care time) together. Research questions are as follows:

2.1Procedure

By means of an anonymous online survey, the situation of young scientists from a German technical university was investigated in April 2021. All scientists from the university who were below the level of full professor (i.e. young scientists) were invited for participation. Content-valid items on scientific work and on the burden of care work were created.

The data analysis was carried out with SPSS 26. Frequencies and distributions were examined descriptively. Chi²-tests, t-tests or ANOVA were calculated to investigate group differences.

2.2Instruments

Participants were first asked to report their gender, age, career stage, to which degree they prioritize their scientific career or their family life, whether in the past year their interest in scientific career, and their publication outcome have changed (Table 1). Items were formulated as a kind of checklist (not a psychometric scale).

The contents of the questionnaire and the items have been developed by scientists who know the scientific setting in all career stages. Items have then been checked for content validity by another heterogenous group of experts and scientific employees from different faculties of the university prior to the beginning of the study. For this study there is no need of a psychometric questionnaire, as there are no psychological constructs in the stricter sense measured (such as behavioral or internal processes, or emotional aspects). Instead, it was necessary to assess demographic facts (e.g. number of children), and situation-related facts such as publication activity, career status, hours of care time and global priorities by categories (family, career).

2.3Participants

Table 1 shows the characteristics of the 346 participants, also stratified by different career groups, as well as the gender comparison. Data on professors (n = 6) cannot be interpreted statistically due to small group sizes, we only report them for descriptive purpose and empirical completeness.

The participating scientists from all disciplines were on average 33 years old and 36.9% female. Thus, the sample is similar to the population of junior scientists at this technical university (31% female in 2019).

Post-Docs were older which is in line with their higher career stage. They were more likely to have children and more extensive care work than doctoral students. Post-Docs had greater variance in changes in publication activity, and they were more likely than doctoral students to report high prioritization of both career and family. Women were more likely to have high prioritization for family and more likely to have longer care times than men, but the same publication development.

3.1Priority for scientific career and publication activities

Most of men and women similarly ranked scientific career as a priority (59.2% and 57.0%, Table 1). Postdocs were more likely to assign a high priority to the career (69.7%) as compared to doctorate candidates (53.8% of them reported high priority for career, Table 1).

The higher the career status (doctorate –post-doc –assistant professor), the higher was the priority for scientific career (beta = 0.202, p < 0.001, Table 2). Family priority, number of children, and amount of care time were not significant in explaining career priority (Table 2). Similarly, gender, contract, and age did not play a role concerning career prioritization (Table 2).

Although career level was found to explain variance in the self-reported importance of the scientific career, family priority was also growing with higher career level (doctorates 64.9%, postdocs 82%, Table 1).

Growth or constancy in publication activities during the COVID-19 pandemic year was explained by having no or few children (beta = –0.288, p = 0.002, Table 2), but not by family prioritization in general (beta = 0.053, p = 0.416, Table 2). Women reported consistency (55.0%) or growth (13.8%) in publications similarly as compared to men (60.7%, 8.6%, Table 1).

3.2Comparison of young scientists with different priorities concerning family and scientific career

Most often the young scientists reported high priority for both family and science (38.8%), followed by family priority (31.6%), career priority (19.4%), and least often no priority (10.1%, Table 3). Gender distribution is overall similar in all the four priority groups (about 29–41% women).

In the group who prioritize both family and career (FC), there are proportionally more post-docs or assistant professors (41.0%, Table 3). This group reported most frequently changes in their publication activity, i.e. either increases (15.4%) or decreases (35.6%, Table 3).

The scientist with high prioritization of career (C, FC) most often expressed unchanged high (65.7–68.4%) or even increasing interest (5.7–7.0%, Table 3) in career. Thus, also scientists who had children and reported frequent and long care periods (FC) were still focusing on their academic goals. Accordingly, correlation analysis shows that prioritization of academic career was independent from prioritization of family life (Spearman correlation r = 0.021, p = 0.676).

4.1Priority for scientific career and publication activities

Concerning the specific research questions of our study, the data show that family and scientific career are independent priorities. In our unselected sample, we found scientists with high priorities for both life domains (work and family: 38.8%), scientists with only family priority (31.6%), those with only scientific priority (19.4%), and some with no priority (10.1%). These groups partly have different characteristics concerning their career level and family situation, but not in scientific interest or outcome.

We found that a priority of scientific career was more established among post-docs than among doctoral students. This is opposite to findings which report decreasing interest in scientific career in post-docs, whereas doctoral students remained interested even during the COVID-19 period [18]. It may be that context factors play a role for the development of scientific career priority, e.g. support from the university, or the national scientific systems as such, and perspectives of reaching a fixed position becoming more realistic with advance in career. In Germany, doctorates and post docs usually remain on temporary contracts, and only entering one of the rather rare professorships results in an unlimited contract. However, university system is changing in Germany as well. Presently there is an increase in private universities and colleges which offer additional professorships. This development may increase the individual (post-doc) candidate’s chances for getting an unlimited position when continuing scientific career.

Care times and the number of care-intensive children impact on scientific publication productivity. This supports finding who reported that scientists with older children or no children (but not those with smaller children aged 0–5 years) reported stable productivity or increases [13]. Our data show that this effect occurs in both women and men. Our findings show that not gender as such may be the problem, but the question who does the care time for children and whether care time is distributed, e.g. between the caring persons or external support for child care.

4.2Young scientists with different priorities concerning family and scientific career

Losses of scientific productivity occurred in all groups, independently from the priority orientation. Thereby it must be considered that publication problems may occur rather in cases of family and children care [13], and publication losses affect both women and men [14]. The individual situations of the scientists are important to consider in respect to potential support activities: A doctorate beginner may need different support (e.g. mentoring for perspective taking towards scientific career of other professional paths) as compared to a post-doc with two children (e.g. child care support for ensuring continuation of scientific activities). Research findings make hope that individual support is given when possible: In the international survey, six out of ten post-docs reported problems to discuss their research with their supervisors or colleagues during the pandemic, but more than half of the post-docs believed that their supervisor had at least done everything s/he could do to give support to their junior scientists [7].

Our data show that young scientists with priority for scientific career seem to be rather stable concerning this wish. This is similar to findings [18] from a survey in the USA in spring 2020. There was little evidence that the pandemic caused substantial shifts in doctoral students’ aspirations and priorities. Some senior students expressed a greater interest in non-academic career paths. Contrary to expectation, the authors found evidence that the pandemic even improved some students’ perceptions of their academic departments.

Despite this rather stable prioritization of scientific career, some of our investigated young scientists perceived losses in publication outcome during the pandemic year. This is a hint that the conditions impact on scientific activities. Despite this fact, 68% of the here investigated young scientists reported no deterioration in scientific outcome or interest during the COVID-19 period. Seemingly, in most cases research activities could be continued during the pandemic or even newly initiated, such as specific timely corona-related research.

4.3Limitations

The sample investigated here was a natural unselected and heterogenous sample of young scientists covering all faculties and groups of junior scientists (especially doctorate candidates, post docs) at a German technical university. This study has been conducted in a German-speaking context. Different experiences can have been made in other regions or even other universities within the national context.