It's right there in the article. You can't take a break from academia. Well, you can, but your career prospects suffer horribly. A quote: "Taking a year off dur

It's right there in the article. You can't take a break from academia. Well, you can, but your career prospects suffer horribly. A quote: "Taking a year off during that critical 5 or 6 year period often means that the research “goes bad” ... You wind up needing to rebuild much more than just a year’s worth of effort." Compare it with e.g. big tech - a hypothetical female PM who has just completed a big project can go off on a maternity leave and return to the memories of her success slightly faded, her contacts gone slightly cold, but otherwise she can start more or less where she left.