Despite an increasing belief in the importance of shared parenting, male-female physician couples still follow traditional societal expectations that the mother provide more child care, suggests a survey published by JAMA Internal Medicine.
The survey compared male-female couples who were both physicians and/or surgeons ages 25 to 50 years old. Couples with children under 1 year old were excluded because hours worked after childbirth likely vary by gender.
The researchers found female physicians with kids worked fewer hours weekly than female physicians without kids. However, this gap did not exist among male physicians, nor did they notice any change in this between 2000 and 2015.
"One possible reason for our results is that even within dual-physician couples, societal expectations for women to reduce hours worked to care for children still hold. Alternatively, women in certain specialties may be more likely to both work fewer hours and have children," the authors wrote.
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