TIME TO START A LIFE AS WELL AS A CAREER? The Chronicle of Higher Education covers a report recommending changes in the way scholars establish themselves.

In particular, the report says, women are being driven away from careers at research universities because of the lock-step nature of a tenure-track career. That is happening even though women now earn 51 percent of the doctorates conferred by American universities (The Chronicle, December 3). If careers in higher education do not become more flexible, the report says, universities will continue to lose out on talented women, particularly those who want to have children. Already, female faculty members say they are much less satisfied with their jobs than men say they are, according to the report.

Part of the problem is that departments are run by men who "typically have spouses or partners who do not work or work only part time to manage their home lives," says the report. Young faculty members, by contrast, are much more likely to have partners who work. "Consequently, faculty homes with spouses or partners to manage the family and household are becoming obsolete," says the report.

That's the Say Aggregation Principle catching up with young workers, and the problem is not limited to the academy.

Playing School, Irreverently, suggests that the job dissatisfaction is not limited to working moms.

And is that why universities lose female faculty? This bit about wanting to have children assumes that by the time one arrives on campus one has a spouse and is ready to procreate. Or has spouse and kids already. It totally ignores that many new faculty have focused on school, not social lives, for years and then suddenly find themselves uprooted to parts of the country where they know no one. They get a demanding job, and then work either in relative isolation (research, writing) or with people who are not suitable friends/dating material (students, departmental colleagues). No one really seems to pay attention to that problem, but I've known 3 women who have left for that reason ... and it is possible that in a year or two I would make myself a 4th.

So, looking at this proposed tenure delay idea ... can I take 10 years to tenure because I need time to meet men, date, and figure out if I want to get married and/or have a kid? Or because I need to travel long distances regularly to see friends and family in order to be happy? Because if I had a corporate job I'd have made my choice in part based on geography.

And presumably working men would benefit by a similar dispensation. How then to balance the income effect of greater prosperity, which works in favor of shorter and more flexible working hours independently of any explicit policy, against the competition effect, in which the individuals willing to work harder (the most independent men and women, for the most part?) will get to the prizes first? The French solution of legislating a shorter work week has not been particularly successful.