Supporting Academic Parents: The Effects of Dependent Care Policies on Research Productivity Trends

On average, women faculty take on more childcare responsibilities, posing barriers to career success. Work-family policies represent one solution for advancing gender equity in academia as they support parents after childbirth with benefits for children, employees, and organizations. We contribute to understanding how the availability and use of dependent care policies (paid parental leave and childcare benefits) relate to long-term research productivity trends. Based on the work-home resources model, we theorize that policy availability provides contextual resources and policy use provides personal resources, leading to improvements in an individual's research productivity after they have a child. We also examine potential gender differences in the effect of dependent care policies on research productivity trends. We leverage n = 6945 yearly top publications and h-index observations for 386 business professors from 108 universities. Consistent with our hypotheses, the availability and use of paid parental leave and childcare benefits were associated with increased research productivity trends, though the effects depend on birth order, policy, and gender to some extent. Our findings have considerable theoretical and practical implications for organizations and society.