When Should You Have A Baby New Study Sheds Light
For centuries, women have old-fashioned intuition, career decisions, chance happenings, and other factors to decide when to have a child. Now, there is scientific research that could also lend a hand in that decision.
Professor Raph Keeney and doctoral student Dinah Vernik from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business have demonstrated that when a woman approaches this decision in a more formal map, it can help to evaluate options for the appropriate time to conceive her first child.
Keeney and Vernik wrote “This decision is too complex to logically consider all the relevant aspects intuitively in one’s head. Yet, for many, it is too important and consequential to simply go with one’s feelings.”
They have published their analysis in a modern train of the journal Decision Analysis. That analysis also reveals that women have more options than they are generally aware of.
To conduct their study, Keeney and Vernik developed a logical decision model that would help women balance the options available. Variables are entered into the model, which then help the mother to compare the benefits they would receive from being a parent against the effects that being a mother would have on their careers, social aspects of life, and the age of the woman in relation to infertility statistics as well as the increased chance of creating a child with genetic abnormalities.
The pair conducted the study on a 20 year used college student who has plans for a professional career, as well as a 25 year old student of doctoral studies who wishes for a career in academics.
The just is for the 25 year feeble doctoral student to resolve how being a mother could affect the likelihood of her receiving tenure at a university. The study authors also wish for it to be known that this situation would also apply to professional women who practice in medicine, law, and other professional fields that have an underlying pressure to reach certain milestones in their careers within a certain period of time.
The study determines that if a woman feels that having a child will hinder her goals to attain a particular level in her career that she needs to achieve, then waiting until that goal is attained to begin view of a child is best.
Interestingly, the study also indicates that if a woman feels that a child will not hinder her goals, then she should conceive at an earlier age. The model can calculate, according to each specific spot, a negative career impact where the woman should put off having a baby.
In the example of the 20 year musty college student who wishes to wait much later to have a child, like the age of 35, a woman with such a career goal should actually have a child earlier, especially in situations where family and career are both important, for a better long-term solution.
Vernik says “It may seem surprising to suggest having a child at a younger age, even if the woman places no importance on having a child until a certain age. But the model takes into account the fact that taking a maternity leave has less impact on the future career of a woman who is a student or in the beginning of her professional life. This woman’s child will also be older and slightly more independent by the time the woman has reached the well-known years of her career.”
Although this research can be helpful, the research team strongly implies that the study should not be looked at as the sole deciding factor, but rather as another aid in determining the appropriate age to start a family.
Keeney asked the following question. “We use decision analysis all the time to guide complex business and policy questions and decisions, so why not spend the structured reach to improve our understanding for making important personal decisions? ”
He also added “A model like this doesn’t, and shouldn’t, preclude the role of emotion, input from the woman’s partner, and other factors in personal decision making, but it does allow a woman to weight different factors according to her values, and then consider those factors in relation to each other in a systematic way.”
Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/du-wth110707.php
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