Abstract
In social science research on academic careers and mobility, a persistent finding is the substantial effect of doctoral origin on the prestige of the first institution at which one works. There also seems to be a substantial tendency among academic institutions to follow institutional self-recruitment. That is, an academic is more likely to be recruited by an institution in the same prestige category as that which produced him or her. From the period of large expansion to the slowdown of growth in higher education, how have patterns of institutional self-recruitment changed? While elite institutions tend to recruit Ph.D.s from a similar group of institutions, as we go down the line of institutional prestige hierarchy there is a diminishing trend of self-recruitment among similar institutions. This study suggests that there is a general downward mobility in prestige for newly recruited Ph.D.s in a period of a tighter market. While Ph.D.s from elite research universities have continued to increase their chances for being employed at lesser institutions, Ph.D.s from less prestigious graduate institutions have trickled down in the prestige hierarchy. The data used for our analysis are from the National Research Council's Doctorate Records File covering the period from 1969 to 1981, which is marked by significant changes in higher education. The techniques applied are developed by Leo Goodman's loglinear models.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allison, P. D., and Stewart, J. A. (1974). Productivity differences among scientists: Evidence for accumulated advantage.American Sociological Review 39: 596–606.
Ashby, E. (1971).Any Person, Any Place. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Baron, J. N. (1984). Organizational perspectives on stratification.Annual Review of Sociology 10: 37–69.
Baron, J. N., and Bielby, W. (1980). Bringing the firms back in: Stratification, segmentation, and the organization of work.American Sociological Review 45: 737–765.
Ben-David, J. (1972).American Higher Education: Directions Old and New. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Berelson, B. (1960).Graduate Education in U.S. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bishop, Y. M. M., Fienberg, S. E., and Holland P. (1975).Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Blau, P. M. (1973).The Organization of Academic Work. New York: Wiley.
Boorman, S. A., and Levitt, P. R. (1979).The Cascade Principle for General Disequilibrium Dynamics. Harvard-Yale Pre-Print in Mathematical Sociology, November. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Caplow, T., and McGee, R. (1958).The Academic Market Place. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Carlin, J. (1966).Legal Ethics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1979).Classification of Higher Education Institutions. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cartter, A. A. (1976).Ph.D.'s and the Academic Labor Market. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Clark, B. R. (1966). The mass college: In H. M. Vollmer and D. L. Mills (eds.),Professionalization, pp. 282–291. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Clark, B. R. (1983).The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Clark, B. R. (1987).The Academic Life: Small Worlds, Different Worlds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cohen, A., and Brawer, F. (1977).A Two-Year College Instructor Today. New York: Praeger.
Crane, D. (1965). Scientists at major and minor universities: A study of productivity and recognition.American Sociological Review 30: 699–715.
Crane, D. (1970). The academic marketplace revisited: A study of faculty mobility using the Cartter ratings.American Journal of Sociology 7:953–956.
Dunham, E. A. (1969).Colleges of the Forgotten Americans: A Profile of State Colleges and Regional Universities. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Finkelstein, M. (1984).The American Academic Profession. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.
Finland, M. (1964). The training of the physician.New England Journal of Medicine 271: 1097.
Freeman, R. B. (1976).The Overeducated American. New York: Academic Press.
Fulton, O., and Trow, M. (1974, Winter). Research activity in American higher education.Sociology of Education 47: 29–73.
Goodman, L. A. (1968). The analysis of cross-classified data: Independence, quasi-independence, and interaction in contingency tables with or without missing cells.Journal of the American Statistical Association 63: 1091–1131.
Goodman, L. A. (1969). On the measurement of social mobility: An index of status persistence.American Sociological Review 34: 381–450.
Goodman, L. A. (1972a). A general model for the analysis of surveys.American Journal of Sociology 77: 1035–1086.
Goodman, L. A. (1972b). A modified multiple regression approach to the analysis of dichotomous variables.American Sociological Review 39: 28–46.
Granovetter, M. (1981). Toward a sociological theory of income differences: In I. Berg (ed.),Sociological Perspectives on Labor Markets, pp. 11–48. New York: Academic Press.
Hagstrom, W. O., and Hargens, L. L. (1968). Mobility theory in the sociology of science. Paper presented at the Cornell Conference on Human Mobility, Ithaca, NY.
Hargens, L. L., and Hagstrom, W. O. (1967). Sponsored and contest mobility of American academic scientists.Sociology of Education 40: 24–38.
Hargens, L. L., Lowell, L., and Farr, G. M. (1973). An examination of recent hypotheses about institutional inbreeding.American Journal of Sociology 78: 1381–1402.
Jencks, C., and Riesman, D. (1968).The Academic Revolution. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Kalleberg, A., and Sorensen, A. (1979). The sociology of labor markets.Annual Review of Sociology 5: 351–379.
Kanter, R. M. (1977).Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Kanter, R. M. (1979). Changing the shape of work: Reform in academe.Current Issues in Higher Education, No. 1. Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education.
Klatzky, S. (1975). Organizational inequality: The case of public employment agency.American Journal of Sociology 76: 474–491.
Laumann, E. O., and Heinz, J. (1977). Specialization and prestige in the legal profession: The structure of difference.ABA Research Journal 6: 155–216.
Light, R., Marseden, L. R., and Corl, T. C. (1973).The Impact of the Academic Revolution of Faculty Careers. Washington, DC: Higher Education.
London, H. B. (1978).Culture of a Community College. New York: Praeger.
Long, J. S. (1978). Productivity and academic position in the scientific career.American Sociological Review 44: 889–908.
Long, J. S., Allison, P. D., and McGinnis, R. (1979). Entrance into academic career.American Sociological Review 46: 816–830.
National Board of Graduate Education (1975).Outlook and Opportunities for Graduate Education. Washington, DC: Author.
Niland, J. R. (1973). Allocation of Ph.D. manpower in the academic labor market.Industrial Relations Review 28: 508–523.
Parsons, T., and Platt, G. (1973).The American University. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Reskin, B. (1979). Academic sponsorship and scientist careers.Sociology of Education 52: 129–146.
Riesman, D., Grisfield, J., and Gamson, Z. (1970).Academic Values and Mass Education. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
Smelser, N. J., and Content, R. (1980).The Changing Academic Market: General Trends and a Berkeley Case Study. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Smith, B. L. R., and Karlesky, J. J. (1977).The State of Academic Science: The Universities in the Nation's Research Effort. New York: Change Magazine Press.
Thurow, L. C. (1975).Generating Inequality. New York: Basic Books.
Youn, T. I. K. (1984). Changing academic markets: Effects of the expansion and contraction of higher education. A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
Youn, T. I. K., and Green, M. (1988). Gender and career mobility in academia. Manuscript. State University of New York at Albany.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Youn, T.I.K. Patterns of institutional self-recruitment of young Ph.D.s: Effects of academic markets on career mobility. Res High Educ 29, 195–218 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992923
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992923