In keeping with the earlier post on gender, this is an overview post on the distribution of (first-listed) areas of specialization among placed candidates. I now have data on 722 candidates who have been placed in tenure-track, postdoctoral, VAP, or instructor positions between late 2011 and mid 2014 (ending today), drawn from ProPhilosophy (2011-2012 and 2012-2013) and PhilAppointments (2013-2014). I aim to make the spreadsheet with this data available by around July 1st (I will continue to add new data until that date). 


Once I removed duplicate placement records, I found there to be 787 placements and 722 placed candidates. Of these placements, 527 or 67% are tenure-track or tenure-track equivalent positions, whereas 260 or 33% are postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions. 

Updating the earlier findings on gender, it is still the case that there is no significant difference between the mean percentage of women in each department who achieve placement and the mean percentage of women graduate students in each department (as reported in the 2013 APA Guide to Graduate Programs), nor is there a significant difference between the mean percentage of women who achieve tenure-track placement in each department and the mean percentage of women graduate students in each department. I did find a significant difference (t-test, p<.05) between the mean percentage of women who achieve postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions in each department (22.57%) and the mean percentage of women graduate students in each department (32.58%). 

The distribution of areas of specialization over this three-year period is as follows:

Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, and Language: 30.9% of tenure-track positions and 35.9% of postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions.

Ethical, Political, Legal, and Value Theory: 33.2% of tenure-track positions and 35.5% of postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions.

Historical Philosophy: 24.2% of tenure-track positions and 12.7% of postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions.

Philosophy of Science: 11.6% of tenure-track positions and 15.8% of postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions.

Thus, the plurality* of tenure-track positions went to candidates in value theory fields, whereas the plurality of postdoctoral/VAP/instructor positions went to candidates in M&E fields, with value theory fields a close second. 

With gender I did not find a significant difference (chi-squared test) between the actual distribution of women and men with and without reported priors and an equal distribution of women and men with and without reported priors (that is, an equal distribution assumes that the overall percentage of women is equal to that of the percentage of women in each category–those with and those without reported priors).  Likewise, I did not find a significant difference between the actual distribution of areas of specialization for those with and without reported priors and an equal distribution of areas of specialization across these categories (that is, an equal distribution assumes that the overall percentage of M&E is equal to that of the percentage of M&E in each category–those with and those without reported priors). Thus, it does not appear that the AOS makeup differs between those with and without reported priors, just as the gender makeup of these groups does not appear to differ. 

*Updated: see comment below.

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7 responses to “Job Placement 2011-2014: Overview on AOS”

  1. Argo Avatar
    Argo

    Kudos for this analysis.

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  2. CL Avatar
    CL

    Thanks, and great work on the analysis. I did have one question about the note that the majority of tenure-track positions goes to candidates in value theory fields. I only see less than 50% (33.2%) of tenure track positions going to value theory fields. To me that seems like a plurality, not a majority. Am I missing some extra step? Thanks again for your work.

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  3. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar

    Good point. I should have said “plurality.” I will fix it. I think my British side came through a little there.

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  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Could you provide the numbers for the Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, and Language positions broken into M&E and Logic & Language parts? My sense was the number of M&E jobs dwarfed the number of L&L jobs in recent years, and it would be nice to see how L&L people are doing.

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  5. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar

    This is a rough estimate, using Excel’s “countif” function (this covered around 200 placements): Philosophy of Language 15%, Logic 6%, Metaphysics 23%, Epistemology 27%, Philosophy of Mind 27%, Philosophy of Action 3%.

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  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Did contemporary continental philosophy get included in one of these categories, or was it not counted at all?

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  7. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar

    I included these candidates (16 total) under “historical philosophy.”

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