I asked Dr. Jena whether he saw temporal trends in the data – had the work hours gap narrowed at all as time went on?

According to him: “We looked at about a 20-year period and found that the reduction in work hours for women in dual-physician couples with the arrival of children did not change over this period”. So the societal shift that has seen more sharing of childrearing responsibilities between men and women is not so evident among physician couples.

Jena and his colleagues are quick to point out that they don’t know the cause of the discrepancy. Perhaps it is due to societal norms that lead women to feel pressured to bear more of the burden of childcare. Or perhaps causality here is flipped, and women physicians who work less demanding hours are more likely to choose to have children.