It might seem hard to believe, when you’re in the fog of new motherhood, and every waking moment is devoted to feeding this tiny baby and rocking her to sleep. It might seem hard to believe, when you have a runny-nosed toddler clutching at your legs, wailing if you try to walk away from him.
But becoming a parent makes you more productive at work. It’s a fact.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis did a study involving 10,000 economists. It looked at research they’d had published in journals, and cross-referenced that with the number of children they had and when they’d had them.
What the study found was that female economists, understandably, had a dip in productivity when their children were young. But it was only temporary. Once the children reached their teens, these women were more productive than childless women their age.
Despite all the extra demands on their time outside of work, they were getting more done than their co-workers.
Top Comments
Saying "becoming a parent makes you more productive at work. It’s a fact." is somewhat misleading, considering the study focused on one group of workers that are likely to have been very productive anyway to have managed to be in a position to be a research economist. It's also the type of work that can be picked up at a later time if you get interrupted by kid duties, like having to go pick up sick kids or going to a school meeting. It's not really comparable to most office or workplace environments.
Sure, some people probably become better at time management, but we've probably all worked with part-time parents that are rubbish as well as some that are awesome. I worked with one woman that was in the office Mondays and Wednesdays. She spent half of Monday going from cubicle to cubicle catching up on gossip, booked all her appointments for work days so she was always "just popping out for half an hour" in addition to taking a lunch break. That's the sort of person that gives part-time parents a bad name.