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Modest Proposal - by John H. Cochrane

grumpy-economist.com · 2,463 words · saved by 1 readers

Link here. I’m not sure if this is serious or a Jonathan Swift-worthy “modest proposal” designed to show the dysfunction of the current system. Later tweets suggest Chen is serious, but one can interpret the proposal either way. It’s worse than Chen thinks. The current standard career track then goes on to 1-2 years as a postdoc, 6-10 years assistant/associate professor, often with “delay the clock” visits to other institutions or “restart the clock” lateral moves. And the current ethic strongly pressures women to delay child-bearing until tenure. It’s also hard to have children when your job lasts 1-2 years so you know you will have to move. That all adds up to a lot closer to 40 than early 30s. And freezing eggs is not magic. Fertility treatment is not guaranteed. Many women who counted on technology discover in their late 30s that biology will not cooperate. This is a great paradox. In my time as an economist, starting in the mid 1980s, the profession has made great strides to inclu

Link here. I’m not sure if this is serious or a Jonathan Swift-worthy “modest proposal” designed to show the dysfunction of the current system. Later tweets suggest Chen is serious, but one can interpret the proposal either way. It’s worse than Chen thinks. The current standard career track then goes on to 1-2 years as a postdoc, 6-10 years assistant/associate professor, often with “delay the clock” visits to other institutions or “restart the clock” lateral moves. And the current ethic strongly pressures women to delay child-bearing until tenure. It’s also hard to have children when your…

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