This paper concentrates upon the relationship between marriage, parental status, and publication productivity for women in academic science, with comparisons to men. Findings indicate that gender, family characteristics, and productivity are complex considerations that go beyond being married or not married, and the presence or absence of children. For women particularly, the relationship between marriage and productivity varies by type of marriage: first compared with subsequent marriage, and occupation of spouse (in scientific compared with non-scientific occupation). Further, type of family composition is important: women with preschool children have higher productivity than women without children or with school-age children. Women with preschool children are found to be a socially selective group in their characteristics, particularly in their allocations of time. accordingly, until we understand factors that are associated with productivity, and variation in productivity by gender, we can neither assess nor correct inequities in rewards, including rank, promotion, and salary. This is because publication productivity operates as both cause and effect of status in science. Publication productivity reflects women's depressed rank and status, and partially accounts for it. 'Partially' is a key term: comparable levels of publication do not produce the same rewards for women and men. This is particularly conspicuous in advancement in academic rank for women compared with men (see Sonnert & Holton, 1995).Numbers of studies indicate gender disparity in publication productivity. 2 In recent years, the disparity has narrowed somewhat in life sciences, but has persisted in scientific fields outside life sciences (Blackburn & Lawrence, 1996). Further, data indicate that while women and men publish at different rates, the publication of both is positively skewedSocial Studies of Science 35/1(February 2005) 131-150

This article is a critical assessment of research productivity through publication among scientists. The article scrutinizes the literature on correlates and determinants of publication productivity; provides an overview and organization of that knowledge; indicates gaps and shortcomings in the research; and hence makes clear the questions and issues which are both answered and unanswered.

Science is an institution with immense inequality in career attainments. Women and most minorities, as groups, have lower levels of participation, position, productivity, and recognition than do white men. Research in the sociology of science has focused on the degree to which different outcomes have resulted from universalistic and from particularistic processes. In this paper we 1) depict the career attainments of women and minorities in science, 2) consider the meaning and measurement of universalism compared to particularism, 3) analyze the causes of differential attainment with a view to assessing evidence for violations of universalism, 4) propose conditions under which particularism is likely to occur, and 5) consider methodological problems that affect this research.

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This article addresses work-family conflict as reported among women and men academic scientists in data systematically collected across fields of study in nine US research universities. Arguing that academic science is a particularly revealing case for studying work-family conflict, the article addresses: (1) the bi-directional conflict of work with family, and family with work, reported among the scientists; (2) the ways that higher, compared with lower, conflict, is predicted by key features of family, academic rank, and departments/institutions; and (3) patterns and predictors of work-family conflict that vary, as well as converge, by gender. Results point to notable differences, and commonalties, by gender, in factors affecting interference in both directions of work-family conflict reported by scientists. These findings have implications for understandings of how marriage and children, senior compared with junior academic rank, and departmental climates shape work-family conflict among women and men in US academic science.