That the demands of academia, the two body problem, combine to be unfavorable for one or both parties’ careers when scientists find partners.
Also, if the two scientists don’t share interests, there seems to often be tension - Feynman’s wife (which is probably a bad example since he was a jackass) specifically stated that he was so consumed by mathematics that he was hard to live with.
Are there examples of scientists where both careers lasted? I’m trying to find counterexamples.
In general, having a partner who is also in academia seems to work okay… Seems to be a theme; if the partner is also a scientist with a flourishing career, things go fairly well. There’s a sex difference in that men in academia usually benefit in productivity from having a partner who is also academia (no surprise there), but the ladies don’t seem to benefit in productivity.
In general I think this book seems to suggest that the ‘reduction in productivity’ someone might find from spending time with a partner is compensated for.
Married Jan Dueser in 1965; thesis published three years later, then a long and illustrius career for him, no apparent scientific outputs for her, though it is said many of his speeches were written by her, three kids.
In 1939 Fano married Camilla (“Lilla”) Lattes, who collaborated with him in science and
worked as a teacher for many years. In the same year the couple immigrated to the
United States in 1939 to escape the racial laws.
In 2000, the husband-wife research team led by Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin proposed and realized the operation of the first MicroLED and passive driving MicroLED displays.