[teeheelol]

Every person I know with a PhD now in their 40s and 50s (7 people) doesn’t have a family and wished they did and didn’t have a PhD. I’d love to see a study on that.

I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.

[glitchc]

This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias. I have a PhD and I had my first child at 28. Almost all of my colleagues have families and children, except for the one person who was unable to attract a suitable mate (and not for lack of trying). Sometimes very bright people have trouble attracting an equivalent person. The pool is that much smaller and other factors (socioeconomic, culture) still play a role as per other relationships.

[AlecSchueler]

To be fair the person above recognised the short comings of anecdotes and said " I’d love to see a study on that."

I'm not sure your own single point anecdote is enough to counter their own experience and indeed comes with all the same "danger" that you warn about.

[behnamoh]

> This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias.

Your own story is also a dangerous anecdote. Without the context, it's pointless to talk about how amazing your Ph.D. experience was. Study engineering or quantitative marketing? Most likely miserable. Study humanities? Probably happier.

[adolph]

> Sometimes very bright people have trouble attracting an equivalent person.

That does not sound very bright. Valuing equivalence over other attributes makes the math work against success.

[fngjdflmdflg]

>I’d love to see a study on that.

Seems like the relevant quote here.

[dsugarman]

If everyone had a requirement for marriage that you marry someone as smart as you, exactly no one would be married.

[Calavar]

Do all seven work at the same place? The PhDs I know mostly work a M-W/9-5 schedule with the occasional late night or weekend day when it's crunch time for a conference deadline. Plenty of time left for family, and they all have families. But that's dependent on departmental culture, and there can be a lot of variance.

[lumost]

I suspect that this also depends on field. CS has been hot for a long time now, it's also not extremely expensive to make a dent - or particularly unlikely. In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists.

[markusde]

I've also heard quite a few people saying that their PhD was one of the best times of their life, because of how free they were to pursue things they found interesting (many of them have also settled down with a family, as well). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[dexwiz]

Grass is always greener.

[simplicio]

FWIW, I finished a physics PhD 15 or so years ago, and 2/3rds or so of the people in the program with me have are married, and most of those couples have children.

There are certainly challenges to having a family while pursing a PhD, but they're not prohibitive, and there are advantages as well (flexible work schedule, Universities often have a lot of programs for employees with children).

[gcheong]

I (M 57) don't have children nor a PhD, I don't regret not having children but do wonder if I missed out on something not having a PhD.

[bosch_mind]

My wife got a PhD by age 28 with over 20 science publications, didn’t stress at all during the time really.

She traveled the world during that time and we live a pretty chill life. Met lots of friends during that time too. Don’t purely listen to anecdotes.

[behnamoh]

From the number of published articles, it seems your wife was in STEM? Engineering Ph.D.s publish a lot of papers but they contribute little to each, because there are often tens of co-authors. Not to downplay your wife's achievement, but pointing out #papers is not that informative.

[dekhn]

This doesn't match my observations. Both when I was in academia and now in industry, I see lots and lots of PhDs with kids (often dual-PhD families). It would have been a lot more challenging if I'd stayed in academia (I live in the pricey Bay Area).

[IncRnd]

As the saying goes, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

If those people had not gotten their PhDs, but families instead, they very well might today desire PhDs.

[latexr]

> I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.

Having a PhD or a family? Because I could see that applied to either. Money and effort are not the only metrics that matter.

[kgwgk]

The family would be too much effort for negative money.

[331c8c71]

Seems like these folks are in academia or have been in academia until very recently? Academic lifestyle tends to take its toll, especially if you move every n years. But even then your sample seems a bit extreme...

Its hard to see how people who switch to industry relatively soon can be penalized so much (and there are a lot of people like that).

[evoloution]

There is a joke among scientists that choosing the career path will cost you your firstborn. It would be nice to quantify this but it is hard to. Anecdotally, main issue is financial stability so people with wealthy backgrounds or supportive (by time investment) families have a much easier time navigating this. I would be surprised if someone did the study and didn't find a delay till first-born child born when compared to similar people (SES background, abilities, etc) that went down the business/finance route. Edit:typo

[bombcar]

Most of the people with the PhD I know that have a family either abandoned the "line of work" (e.g, mathematics PhD but did computer programming) or was a teacher/professor.

[vkazanov]

I know a PhD specialising in applying ml algorithms to different markets, mostly energy-related.

Married, 3 kids, good position In a fund, same focus as his phd.

He was very, very lucky, without even realising it to this day. His wife took most of the hit, with him permanently working, or teaching, or something, and her taking care of thr rest of their life, kids included.

On the specialisation side. He never went the "pursue a dream even with no money" way. It was more about picking things he was good at, and also making sure the choice included sellable skills.

[2o3jriw3jril]

The majority of the people I know who have PhDs have families with children by 30-35.

My experience in grad school is that there are two different classes of people pursuing PhDs:

- people whose parents have MSs or PhDs, who had guidance from a very early age, who have been advised the entire way through and are able to complete their PhDs by age 25-28

- people whose parents don't have advanced degrees, who are at a pretty severe disadvantage, who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad, who don't know how to pick a decent advisor, who don't know how to organize their own funding which provides some level of research independence and the ability to focus on completing their degree instead of worshipping their advisor, and these people are much more likely to take 6,7,8+ years to complete their PhD if they complete it at all

But that's not really relevant to this story. This is an article about a woman who dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and was given an honorary degree decades later because the work she did complete was groundbreaking.

[BeFlatXIII]

> who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad

That was me. I always assumed I'd go to grad school because that's just what was done; I never realized that my parents' meeting in grad school meant they worked normal people jobs for the better part of a decade before continuing their educations.

[dotnet00]

Most of the people with PhDs in that age group I know are married and often talk excitedly about what activities they recently did with their kids. Many are married to other people with PhDs, and their kids also seem to intend to go for PhDs.

The early 30s postdocs seem to mostly be single though, so maybe they'll face that in their 40s and 50s.

[denhaus]

More than half of the PhDs I know (in technical fields) have families. Actually, almost all of them.

[mlhpdx]

About half the PhDs I know have families and are happy with their career choice (challenging and rewarding work). You’re casting unfounded judgement IMHO.

[gwbas1c]

My wife has a PhD, just turned 40, and we have three kids.

Towards the end of her program, she decided she didn't want a research career.

[KeplerBoy]

I don't see how going for a PhD limits one's family life.

Sure one could earn more money for less work in the industry, but being a PhD student is still a rather cushy job earning decent money compared to a lot of physical jobs out there. Also nobody cares at which time of the day/week you do your work, which is nice in times where other jobs might prefer to have your ass in an office.

[behnamoh]

> I don't see how going for a PhD limits one's family life.

Only one way to find out! It limits your family/friends/sex/fun life because the work load is a lot, there are no official "work hours" (so you end up working on weekends, at nights, when others are sleeping, when others go to parties, etc.), you get paid less than people who work in industry even though your work is as difficult (if not more) than theirs (think about the ML stuff Ph.D.s do vs. engineers in companies), you still have to deal with shitty politics in the department, etc.

[margalabargala]

I'm friends with a bunch (15+) of people with PhDs. Many of them have partners and children.

That said, several of them joke with me that the fact that they have a PhD and I have a Masters is an indication I am smarter than they are.

[WalterBright]

I didn't pursue graduate work because I didn't think the payback was there for the years of study. I haven't regretted it.

[rsynnott]

Fairly small sample group; if we're doing anecdata, I think more of my be-phd-d friends have kids than the non-phd ones.

[pipe2devnull]

And I’ve seen the exact opposite. The 3 PhDs I’ve worked with that fit that criteria all have multiple kids.

[satvikpendem]

All the PhDs I know do have families. Anecdata can work both ways.

[lupire]

Where are you meeting these people? Selection bias?

[LtWorf]

I know multiple people with phd and kids.

[checker659]

You mean divorced or never married?