Productivity and Reproductivity: Fertility and Professional Achievement among Research Scientists*

Data for a group of research chemists are examined to test the hypothe-sis that marital fertility is associated with lower levels of research productivity and to assess the eitent to which the fertility—productivity relationship varies by sex. The results show a negative relationship between fertility and produc-tivity among the scientists; the relationships for the sexes are similar in direction and magnitude. We argue that previous studies of the impact of marital fertility on career attainments have failed to find the expected negative association because they have dealt with workers who cannot freely invest extra time and energy in work efforts and because they have used inadequate measures of attainment such as occupational mobility rat her than more direct measures of job performance. The idea that occupational success is negatively associated with fertility is a classical hypothesis in social demography. Ambition for social achieve-ment, it is reasoned, motivates couples to limit the number of their children in order to free the time, energy, and money which are usually required to rear a large family, for economic and occupational pursuits (Berant; Westoff et al.). Investing these resources in occupational activities should result in superior economic or occupational performance, which should in turn be reflected by later career success. The hypothesized negative association between career success and fertility should be due in part to deliberate attempts by ambitious couples to limit their fertility and in part to the advantages which extra resources confer on couples who have fewer chil-dren, regardless of the reasons for their lower fertility. *We are grateful to Paul D. Allison and Paula M. Hudis for their comments on a previous draft of this paper