DURHAM, N.C., Nov. 8 The science of decision-making is available to help women determine when to have a child, two U.S. business scholars suggest.
Professor Ralph Keeney and doctoral student Dinah Vernik of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business developed a logical decision model to help a woman weigh her options according to her values in a systematic way.
"This decision is too complex to logically consider all the relevant aspects intuitively in one's head," the researchers say in a statement. "Yet, for many, it too important and consequential to simply go with one's feeling."
The model, published in the journal Decision Analysis, doesn't discount emotion or a partner's input but aims to balance the benefits of motherhood against the effects on career as well as age-related concerns of diminishing fertility and increasing likelihood of conceiving a child with a genetic abnormality.
The researchers said that delay of children bearing may work best for women in professional careers but other women may find having a child as a student or early in their careers may have less of an impact.
The findings are published in the journal Decision Analysis.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
