We've seen how marriage can help women live longer and stay healthier, but there may be one area where being married doesn't help -- getting ahead at work.
A new study from the American Historical Association revealed that married female history professors wait longer to be promoted than unmarried female history professors. Married and unmarried male history professors get promoted at faster rates than their female counterparts, regardless of the women's marital status.
After surveying more than 2,000 professors, researchers discovered that the married female history profs were promoted from associate to full professor in an average of 7.8 years, reported The Atlantic. Never-married women were promoted in an average of 6.7 years. Among male professors, married men were promoted in 5.9 years, while unmarried men advanced in 6.4 years.
Perhaps most interestingly, when asked if female professors were treated fairly at their universities, only 55.4 percent of women surveyed agreed, compared to 84.7 percent of men.
The study illuminated some of the possible reasons why married female professors take the longest to get ahead in history departments. More women than men reported that they had taken a leave of absence for the birth of a child or for child care reasons, or that they had left a position in order to support a spouse.
Seth Rockman, an associate professor at Brown University, told The Atlantic: "This explains why marriage accelerates a man's career. If men can continue to find wives who will abandon their professional aspirations to assist their husbands, well, that's it in a nutshell."
Check out the more marriage findings in the slideshow below.
