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  • Participants were invited to fill in an online survey in Germany and in the United States. Individual participants were chosen that met the requirements to form a comparable German and U.S. sample. In the email that was sent to potential participants, we wrote: “In connection with Heidelberg University, we [names of authors] are currently conducting an international study to investigate the career path motivations of women and men after completion of their PhD work”. The sample was recruited from five universities: For the German sample, we decided to include two high-ranking universities, one from former West Germany and one from former East Germany. We based this decision on the 2010 edition of the Shanghai ranking (http://www.arwu.org/), which compares and ranks the top five hundred universities in the world, based on criteria like number and citation rates of publications and scientific awards. For the U.S. sample, we selected one Ivy League university and two state universities; all of which ranked very highly in the mentioned ranking system. We used the software “Soscisurvey” (www.soscisurvey.de), which offers all state of the art requirements for online based surveys. Each recipient was addressed personally via e-mail and received an individual serial number for the questionnaire. The aim of this procedure was twofold: first, it ensured that each participant could only fill in the questionnaire once. Second, it was possible to remind those recipients who had not responded to the survey. However, it was not possible to link the serial number to participant’s email addresses, therefore guaranteeing anonymity of responses. The e-mail addresses of the potential participants were collected individually from the universities’ home pages. Early career researchers from various academic fields were identified and addressed. A balanced number of men and women was equally attained. In the personalized email, it was stated that participation was a vital part of an international comparison study to investigate the work situation of early career researchers in Europe and in the United States. No incentives besides receiving the study’s findings after completion were offered to participants. Two reminders were sent to those participants who did not fill in the questionnaire after ten and fourteen days, respectively. This procedure revealed the following total sample sizes and response rates (in parentheses): German university 1: N = 79 (36%), German university 2: N = 156 (35%), U.S. university 1: N = 83 (18.5%), U.S. university 2: N = 103 (22%), U.S. university 3: N = 42 (20%). The mean duration of filling in the questionnaire was M = 14.75 (SD = 4.4) minutes. From the initial total sample size of N = 463, we eliminated 13 participants who did not fill in any questionnaires (including demographic information). Fifty participants reported that they no longer worked in academia at the time of assessment and were also excluded; one more participant was excluded due to a nonsensical response (self-reported age older than 900 years). The final sample comprised 95 women and 107 men representing the two German universities, and 96 women and 101 men from three U.S. universities. The total sample size was N = 399. We also assessed the academic fields of the study participants (by the question: “In which discipline did you acquire your PhD?”). We then classified these answers following the ISCED Fields of education and training 2013 [33], and formed four categorizations (arts and humanities; social sciences + business and law; natural sciences; and other academic fields). About 40% of participants in both countries acquired their PhD in natural sciences (36% in Germany, 42% in the US), about a quarter of participants in social sciences / business / law (Germany: 25%, US: 25%) and arts and humanities (Germany: 24%, US: 20%), respectively. There was no statistically meaningful difference between the two countries regarding academic fields, χ2(3) = 1.97, p = .579, Cramer’s V = .07. A detailed description of the sample is shown in S1 Table. The data can be retrieved from https://osf.io/qk3em/. The Ethics Commission of the Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies at Heidelberg University considers studies conducted by students as part of their degree program as exempt from ethical approval and expects the supervisors (in this case: Monika Sieverding, the first author) of the students to control that the ethical guidelines are fulfilled. Therefore, in their guidelines it is stated that students’ studies are only reviewed in in well-reasoned exemptions. The guidelines can be retrieved here (unfortunately only in German): http://www.verkult.uni-heidelberg.de/Formulare/Ethikkommission-Fakultaet-VerKult-HD_Informationen-zum-Verfahrensablauf.pdf). As the data collection for the study presented in this manuscript stems from the Master thesis of Thomas Stahl (the last author), and the study did not include any features that could be ethically relevant, we did not ask the Ethics Commission for ethical approval. The supervisor of the study (Monika Sieverding) confirms that the study was conducted in line with the ethical guidelines set out by the German Psychological Society (DGPs: https://www.dgps.de/fileadmin/documents/Empfehlungen/berufsethische_richtlinien_dgps.pdf. The study did not bear any obvious risk to the physical or psychological well-being of the participants involved. All data were collected and treated anonymously. Participants were informed about the goal of the study, the procedures, and participants’ rights. Participation was voluntary. Subjects were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any point without repercussions. Subjects were assured that their data would be treated anonymously and that their answers could not be linked to them. Participants were also informed that they could always contact the PI at any time if they had questions about the study. Participants were informed that they are invited to participate in the study if they wish to by clicking on the link in the email. Informed consent was given by all participants. All data was treated anonymously. As the data were collected via Soscisurvey, there was no option to track individuals or see who they were. The IP addresses were not recorded. When clicking on the provided personalized link, informed consent was obtained. It was also possible to stop the survey at any given point and continue with the survey at a later point. A point of contact was also provided in case participants had questions. Work hours. For assessing actual work hours, participants were asked: “Please think about your typical work week. How many total hours do you work currently in an average work week (regardless of where this work takes place)?”. Ideal work hours were assessed by asking: “What would be the ideal working hours for you per week?”. Both of these questions were adapted from the study of Lubinski and colleagues [34]. Calling. Calling was assessed with five items from the “Pennsylvania Work Life Questionnaire” [31], ranging from “not at all” to “a lot”. Specifically, we asked the following five questions: “I enjoy talking about my work to others”, “My work is one of the most important things in my life”, “If I was financially secure, I would continue with my current line of work even if I was no longer paid”, “My work makes the world a better place”, “I would choose my current work life again if I had the opportunity”. The items were translated into German and then back-translated into English for verification by two bilingual persons. Cronbach’s alpha in the U.S. sample was .80 and in the German sample .72. Higher values indicate seeing the job as a calling. Mother-child ideology. Mother-child ideology was assessed by the subscale “mother and child ideology” of the questionnaire “prejudices against workforce participation of women” [35]. The four items “A pre-school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works”, “A mother is irreplaceable in the first year of a child's life”, “Women, who are especially strong in terms of their engagement in their professions, cannot be good mothers at the same time”, “Mothers of small children, who pursue their professions full-time, do so at the expense of their children's development” were measured on a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. The items were translated into English and then back-translated into German for verification by two bilingual persons. Cronbach’s alpha in the U.S. sample was .76 and in the German sample .81. Higher values indicate more traditional mother-child attitudes. Gender was coded with 0 (male) and 1 (female). Years since PhD was calculated from answers given to the question “When did you finish your PhD (thesis defense or viva voce, respectively)?”. Duration of PhD was assessed with the question “In total, how long did it take you to finish your PhD (in years)?” and here it was possible to answer in decimals. Parenthood was assessed with the question “Do you have children?” (yes; coded as 1 / no; coded as 0). Participants’ country was coded as 0 (Germany) or 1 (USA), respectively. We also examined whether the effects remained unchanged even after controlling for further variables. We note that in contrast to the covariates specified in the previous section, these variables were not chosen as independent variables in an a-priori fashion. Results involving these variables should therefore be interpreted as exploratory. The main reason for including these variables was to examine if the effects were robust when including additional independent variables. Perceived career attractiveness was measured using one item (“How attractive do you consider an academic career for you personally?”) with responses ranging from 1 “very unattractive” to 5 “very attractive”. Distribution of work time was assessed as the percentage of work time devoted to research, teaching, and administration, respectively (with the constraint that percentages needed to amount to 100%). Further, we assessed whether the participants’ current position was permanent (coded as 1) or not (coded as 0). Results involving these variables will be presented at the end of the Results section. Descriptive statistics for the sample data are presented in the Supplementary S1 and S2 Tables. Three hundred and forty-seven participants (87% of the sample) had complete data on all study variables. Missing values were replaced using multiple imputation implemented via the mice package [36] in R. Thirty imputations were computed and the pooled results across the imputed data sets are reported. Note that this resulted in non-integer values for degrees of freedom. The code necessary to reproduce the reported results can be retrieved from https://osf.io/qk3em/.
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