The Professor will present the paper: Innovation and motherhood

Abstract:
We examine how motherhood affects the careers of women in innovation---a field dominated by men. Only 40% of female inventors become mothers during their lifetime, which is about half the fertility rate of highly educated women. Female inventors have children relatively late as most inventor children are born in the four years after the mother has filed her first patent. Following childbirth, the likelihood of female inventors to apply for a patent declines by 33%. The productivity dip ends when children enter school age, but productivity levels of women at this age are generally low. The dip stems from mother inventors' career path choices who stay home for longer periods of time, return only part-time, and less frequently change jobs, employers, or industries. The innovation gap after childbirth leads to economically meaningful wage gaps on the long run. Our results suggest that women may be reluctant to start a career in innovation because such a career is difficult to reconcile with having children.