anthropology phd job market

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Research Article

Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions

Contributed equally to this work with: Robert J. Speakman, Carla S. Hadden, Victor D. Thompson

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] (RS); [email protected] (VT)

Affiliation Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

¶ ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Affiliations Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

• Robert J. Speakman, 
• Carla S. Hadden, 
• Matthew H. Colvin, 
• Justin Cramb, 
• K. C. Jones, 
• Travis W. Jones, 
• Isabelle Lulewicz, 
• Katharine G. Napora, 
• Katherine L. Reinberger, 

• Published: September 12, 2018
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528
• Reader Comments

Between 1985 and 2014, the number of US doctoral graduates in Anthropology increased from about 350 to 530 graduates per year. This rise in doctorates entering the work force along with an overall decrease in the numbers of tenure-track academic positions has resulted in highly competitive academic job market. We estimate that approximately79% of US anthropology doctorates do not obtain tenure-track positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. Here, we examine where US anthropology faculty obtained their degrees and where they ultimately end up teaching as tenure-track faculty. Using data derived from the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide and anthropology departmental web pages, we identify and rank PhD programs in terms of numbers of graduates who have obtained tenure-track academic jobs; examine long-term and ongoing trends in the programs producing doctorates for the discipline as a whole, as well as for the subfields of archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology; and discuss gender inequity in academic anthropology within the US.

Citation: Speakman RJ, Hadden CS, Colvin MH, Cramb J, Jones KC, Jones TW, et al. (2018) Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions. PLoS ONE 13(9): e0202528. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528

Editor: John P. Hart, New York State Museum, UNITED STATES

Received: March 31, 2018; Accepted: August 3, 2018; Published: September 12, 2018

Copyright: © 2018 Speakman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data needed to replicate our study are contained within the paper and its Supporting Information files and/or are publicly available. The data on which this study is based were generated by the authors using the 2014–2015 American Anthropological Association AnthroGuide [ 25 ] (with exceptions as noted in the text) and the National Science Foundation [ 6 – 8 ]. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the database developed is available upon request. Please send requests to the University of Georgia's Center for Applied Isotope Studies at [email protected] .

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

We recently examined the realities and prospects of obtaining a faculty position in anthropological archaeology at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US and Canada [ 1 ]. Here we expand the study to include the other subdisciplines of anthropology to track and compare each of them, as well as evaluate the discipline as a whole with respect to job prospects at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. As we outlined in our Archaeology faculty jobs study [ 1 ], repeated here to provide context for the current study, the statistics surrounding Anthropology and Archaeology career prospects provided by most outlets are not positive. In 2012, both Kiplinger Business Forecast and Forbes ranked Anthropology and Archaeology “as the worst choice of college majors with an unemployment rate of 10.5% and a median salary of $28,000 for recent college graduates” [ 2 – 3 ]. In their 2016–2017 forecast, Kiplinger ranked Anthropology as the fifth worst college major [ 4 ], reporting that 8,255 anthropologists and archaeologists are currently employed in the discipline. This employment estimate is only slightly higher than the 7,700 reported by the 2015 U.S. Department of Labor Outlook Handbook [ 5 ]. Kiplinger further reports that there are only approximately 920 job advertisements posted online for Anthropology and Archaeology each year. Overall, job prospects are low for the 12,000 students who successfully complete an undergraduate or graduate degree in anthropology each year. Taken together, these statistics indicate that jobs in anthropology are available for fewer than 8% of new anthropology graduates (PhD, MA/MS, and BA/BS) [ 4 ].

The fact that most careers in anthropology require some form of advanced degree further compounds the problem. More students pursue advanced degrees in hopes of improving their career prospects within the discipline, only to find an extremely competitive, over-saturated job market for early career anthropologists. Since 1985, the number of doctoral degrees awarded by US anthropology departments has increased from approximately 350 to about 530 per year ( Fig 1 ) [ 6 – 8 ]. During this same period, the number of female doctorates has increased to a point that now there are two female PhD graduates in anthropology for every male ( Fig 1 ) [ 6 – 8 ]. However, an advanced degree does not necessarily lead to a better job. Those fortunate enough to hold academic positions, not only in anthropology but in other fields also, are cognizant of the fact that few of their own graduate students are likely to obtain a faculty position themselves. In today’s highly competitive academic job market, it is not uncommon to have large numbers of qualified applicants competing for a given position. Of the ca. 13,000 doctorates in anthropology conveyed in the US between 1985 and 2014 [ 6 – 8 ], we estimate that approximately 21% obtained tenure-track faculty positions in anthropology in the US.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.g001

A common criticism of such statistics has been that anthropology trains individuals for many sectors and career paths not captured in these numbers. While this is true, the fact remains that a large proportion of graduates who are seeking employment in anthropology will not be able to find employment within the discipline. We, of course, recognize that many programs offer non-academic pathways; however, we argue that most anthropology PhD programs are designed to train and replicate the type of scholarship engaged in by its faculty, which is by definition academic. Students are trained, largely, to be academics [ 9 ]. Thus, even when students are provided some degree of choice or training concerning different career paths, many, will choose or attempt to obtain a faculty position—this will, of course, be encouraged by faculty. In fact, encouraging students down an academic path is beneficial to faculty as it raises the overall profile of the department if their students are successful in obtaining positions. Again, we recognize this does not characterize all individuals, programs, and departments, and that there are exceptions. Despite this, however, the numbers point to the fact that there is an inordinate number of candidates—sometimes in the hundreds—for any one academic position advertised, suggesting that there are systemic issues at play.

Academic employment challenges are not limited to anthropology. Multiple studies have detailed the issues surrounding employment for the social sciences, humanities, computer sciences, and business [ 10 – 13 ]. In the biological sciences, the outlook is not any better. A recent study by Ghaffarzadegan and colleagues [ 14 ] determined that 84% of new PhD graduates in biological and medical sciences are not successful in landing a tenure-track academic position. Simply put, the American academic system generates doctorates at a rate greater than the job market can support [ 15 – 18 ].

The issue is more complex than there simply not being enough departments to hire new tenure-track faculty. The problem is that programs are producing doctorates at levels that are not sustainable. As secondary education institutions have increasingly embraced business management models over the past 30 years, universities, in order to maintain a competitive advantage, have expanded graduate programs. Many programs that used to offer a BA/BS as their highest degree now offer MA/MS degrees. Likewise, a number of programs that previously offered a MA/MS as their highest degree now offer a PhD. At the same time, many colleges and universities have moved toward limiting tenure-track faculty positions and instead use lower paid non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) such as graduate students, part-time lecturers/instructors on short-term contracts, or full-time NTTF who typically have better job security and salaries higher than their part-time counterparts. It is estimated that NTTF comprise about 70% of the total faculty workforce as of 2011 [ 19 – 20 ]. Concurrent with the increase in NTTF, the numbers of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty have decreased from approximately 55.8% in 1975 to 29.2% in 2011 [ 19 ].

Another important factor that is oftentimes overlooked with respect to the academic job market is the retirement age of tenured faculty. When the 1986 amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) ended mandatory retirement in most occupations, postsecondary schools were allowed to continue imposing a mandatory retirement age of 70 on tenured faculty. The ADEA exemption ended in December 1993 and had an immediate effect on academic retirement rates. By 2010, the number of tenured professors older than age 65 more than doubled [ 21 ]. Currently the median age of college and university faculty surpasses all other occupational groups in the US [ 21 ]. The net result is that longer faculty careers directly translate to a reduction in the rate of new hires. Some researchers have estimated a reduction of new assistant-professor hiring rates of 10–20% [ 14 ] and have developed models that demonstrate that rather than being a transient issue, the actual number of new faculty hires has been permanently reduced [ 22 ]. In principal, for each senior-level faculty retirement, a university should be able to hire at least 1.5 tenure-track assistant professors. However, this is not necessarily the case, as many universities opt to replace tenured faculty lines with less costly NTTF hires, further suppressing the availability of new tenure-track faculty hires. The reality is that recent graduates seeking academic positions often find themselves in lengthy and insecure postdoctoral research positions [ 23 ] or a seemingly endless series of NTTF positions—if they are among the fortunate. There is little institutional incentive to replace low-paying, temporary NTTF with higher-paying tenure-track positions [ 23 – 24 ] and it is unlikely that this business model will change. For most recent PhD graduates, the job market—especially the academic job market—is bleak [ 9 ].

With more than 110 programs producing anthropology doctorates in the US, it is clear that not all programs are equal. Prospective graduate students must consider many factors in selecting a graduate program, including department rankings and institutional prestige, fit with departmental research interests, and, perhaps most importantly, access to financial support. Here, we examine data from US anthropology departments to: (1) identify and rank doctoral programs whose graduates have obtained tenure-track academic jobs; (2) identify long-term and ongoing market-share trends in the programs producing doctorates; and (3) evaluate gender division in academic anthropology in the US. As our primary source of data, we utilized the 2014–2015 American Anthropological Association AnthroGuide [ 25 ] to document the current state of the tenure-track anthropology job market in the US. Data from the AnthroGuide are self-reported by anthropology departments, and include general information about departments, such as degrees offered and program descriptions, as well as more specific information about their faculty. This includes academic rank, specialization, and year and origin of doctorate. Our data clearly demonstrate that a small percentage of anthropology departments hold a majority of the academic market share, which we define as the percentage of tenured/tenure-track positions in US anthropology departments that are attained by graduates of a specific program over a 20-year period of time. We then rank programs in terms of total market-share. In business, market share is determined by calculating the total sales over a given period (e.g., number of tenure-track job placements for a given period for a given program) and dividing the company’s total revenues by the industry’s total sales (e.g., total number of tenure-track anthropology jobs over a given period). Market share reflects the relative competitiveness of a company’s products or services relative to other competitors. Market share is not a measure of the real or perceived quality of goods and services, nor is it a measure of how many individual units a company placed on the market, but is instead a measure of how company sales compare to other companies within the same industry. Likewise, our academic market share rankings are not a measure of the real or perceived quality of a graduate program, nor are they a reflection of how many PhD graduates from a given program entered the tenure-track job market—market share is simply a measure of tenure-track job placement for individuals from a specific university relative to other universities.

The idea of ranking programs based on placement is not a new concept. Schmidt and Chingos [ 26 ] proposed the idea that a graduate program’s history of placing new scholars into faculty positions is as important of an indicator of departmental quality as the research produced within it. As part of their study, Schmidt and Chingos [ 26 ] compared academic job placement for recent political science doctorates to National Research Council (NRC) Q ranking scores. They determined that their per-capita academic placement rankings were fairly strongly correlated (R = 0.871) with the NRC rankings, but that in some cases lower-ranked NRC programs had better per-capita academic job placement than some of the higher ranked NRC programs. The authors concluded that ranking programs using the concept of quality is difficult to measure precisely, but that a program’s placement record reflects both the quality of the students it is able to attract as well as the training they receive.

More recently, Speakman and colleagues [ 1 ] examined academic tenure-track job placement at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions for programs producing anthropological archaeology doctorates in the US and Canada. This study determined that a small number of graduate programs in the US and Canada account for a majority of the total market-share. This work also concluded that for prospective doctoral students, obtaining a degree from the right program could be among the most critical first steps for those who aspire for a tenure-track academic career. In the current paper, we examine market share for anthropology as a discipline. Unlike the Speakman et al. study, which focused on the archaeology and bioarchaeology job market in the US and Canada [ 1 ], here we limit our geographical focus to doctoral programs in the US and expand our discussion to include the subdisciplines of sociocultural anthropology and biological anthropology, as well as archaeology.

At this point, we feel the need to emphasize several key concepts that are stated in detail in our previous study [ 1 ]. First, our program rankings describe only market share in terms of total numbers of graduates who have obtained tenure-track positions in BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD programs within the US. Our rankings do not reflect the real or perceived quality of a graduate program (although arguably these variables are highly correlated). We do not attempt to, nor can we account for, PhDs working outside of academia in the US (e.g., industry, government, museum, NGO’s, etc.) or anthropology PhDs who are faculty in non-anthropology departments or PhDs who have found academic employment in countries other than the US. Our focus here is solely on tenure-track faculty in anthropology departments in the US who are employed in BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD programs. Our database only includes individuals listed as “faculty”. Faculty generally hold the title of “assistant,” “associate,” or “full” professor. Information for people classified as anything other than “faculty” is not included in our database. These include categories such as lecturer, staff, post-doc, research staff, adjunct, affiliated, emeritus, museum professional, or anthropologists in other departments. We do not assume that all graduate students entering a PhD program begin with the goal of obtaining a tenure-track position, but arguably many incoming PhD graduate students entertain the idea of completing their degree and entering the tenure-track job market. Finally, our focus on tenure-track employment in BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD programs is not meant to imply that other career tracks are more or less satisfactory and/or fulfilling—our focus here is simply on the tenure-track job market.

Results and discussion

As a first step in examining the data, we compiled a Table ( S1 Table ) in which we tabulated total market share for each of the approximately 118 US universities (as well as dozens of foreign institutions) that have (or previously had) anthropology PhD programs. We only include in this Table programs that placed at least one individual who graduated between 1994 and 2014 into an anthropology faculty position within the US. We then tabulated PhDs completed between 1994 and 2014 (n = 2070) and sorted the 20-year total from highest to lowest. Because some programs tend to emphasize preferentially archaeology, bioanthropology, or sociocultural anthropology, we also produced comparable Tables for each of these subdisciplines ( S2 – S4 Tables). In an ideal study, we would we able to compare total numbers of graduates per institution directly to numbers of graduates who obtained faculty positions to provide indices of per-capita tenure-track placement for graduates of a given institution—however, these data simply do not exist.

We calculated percentiles to rank each university based on their cumulative 20-year market share. We used cutoffs of 95 th , 90 th , 75 th , 50 th , 25 th , and 10 th percentiles to rank the programs. These rankings are summarized in Table 1 . Comparable Tables for the subdisciplines of archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology are presented in S5 Table . Programs that had no anthropology faculty job placements in the past 20 years (ca. 10) are not included in our assessment. It is important to note that many, but not all, of the lower-ranked programs are relatively new (e.g., past 20 years) and that the low rankings for these programs are not as informative as rankings for older and more established programs.

Summary statistics for ranking and placement averages for Anthropology programs listed in S1 Table .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.t001

For the discipline of anthropology, there are 5 programs in the 95 th percentile. The 95 th percentile also includes all foreign-derived doctorates grouped as a single category “Foreign.” There are 6 departments in the 90 th percentile. The 11 universities and foreign-derived doctorates in the 90 th and 95 th percentiles account for more than 39% of the total market share over the past 20 years. Departments in the 95 th percentile average 4.7 graduates landing tenure-track positions per year, and programs in the 90 th percentile average slightly more than 2 placements per year ( Table 1 , S1 Table ). There are 19 universities in the 75 th percentile, with an average placement of 1.6 graduates per year. When we consider departments ranked at the 75 th percentile or higher, 30 PhD programs (ca. 27% of all US doctoral programs) and foreign-derived degrees account for more than 68% of the total market share.

The 27 programs in the 50 th percentile, 25 in the 25 th percentile, and 28 in the 10 th percentile are placing doctorates on average at a rate of one individual every 1.2 years (50 th percentile), one every 3 years (25 th percentile), or one person every 12.7 years (10 th percentile). We note that a few universities in the 10 th percentile do not actually have doctoral programs in anthropology. These programs/individuals represent faculty who obtained doctorates outside the field of anthropology and gained employment within an anthropology department.

Considering that programs ranked lower than the 75 th percentile account for 80 universities (or 72% of all doctoral programs), yet have only 31.6% of the total market share, it is critical that potential graduate students understand that although there are many choices available for graduate school. The harsh reality is that not applying and/or being accepted to a top school has serious ramifications if one has aspirations of obtaining a tenure-track academic position. We likewise point out that departments have different strengths in archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology and that just because a program is ranked highly for all subdisciplines of anthropology ( Table 1 , S1 Table ) that one must consider the job placement rates for program within their specific subdiscipline ( S2 – S5 Tables). In Table 2A–2D , we list all programs in the 90 th percentile or higher for each subdiscipline of anthropology. The University of Michigan, Harvard University, and foreign earned doctorates are ranked highly in all three subdisciplines. We note, however, that data for Harvard subsume two separate doctoral programs: anthropology and human evolutionary biology (i.e., biological anthropology).

All subfields of anthropology (A), archaeology (B), bioanthropology (C), and sociocultural anthropology (D). The number of placements (n) and percentage of academic market share (%) for the period 2004–2014 are provided.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.t002

We examined two groups of PhD recipients: those who graduated between 1994 and 2003 (n = 1008) and those who graduated between 2004 and 2014 (n = 984). Using the percentile categories defined above—which again describe market share, not the real or perceived quality of a graduate program—we plotted where anthropologists originated, and where they ultimately obtained faculty positions ( Fig 2 ). It is evident from the two periods examined that where an individual obtains their PhD greatly influences where they ultimately become employed. It is not surprising that graduates from programs ranked in the 75 th percentile and higher dominate the job market for Period 1994–2003 with the exception of departments that offer a BA/BS as their highest degree. Interestingly, for the period 2004–2014, graduates of programs ranked at the 90 th percentile and higher are being hired at higher rates than previously into departments with doctoral programs that are ranked in the 50 th percentile and higher. Although we have no means by which to evaluate individuals who obtained positions in higher ranked departments, it appears that those who obtain doctorates from foreign institutions or higher-ranked programs (≥90 th percentile) currently have a much greater competitive advantage in the academic job market than in the previous period. In contrast, individuals who earned doctorates from programs ranked below the 50 th percentile are less likely to obtain positions in higher ranked PhD programs and are more likely to obtain positions in lower-ranked PhD departments and departments that offer a BA/BS or MA/MS as their highest degree.

Comparison of PhD origin versus the destination department (where the individual is ultimately employed) for 1994–2003 (A) and 2004–2014 (B). The x-axis depicts the type of program that PhD graduates are hired into relative to the rank of the program from where individual graduated. Academic market share change over the past 20 years has increasingly favored the hiring of PhD graduates from anthropology programs in the 90 th percentile and higher into higher ranked anthropology PhD programs.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.g002

Finally, we examined differences in gender in hiring practices for anthropology as a whole and the subdisciplines of archaeology, biological anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. Using NSF data [ 6 – 8 ], we modeled the percentages of male and female anthropology doctoral recipients from 1985 to 2014 ( S6 Table ; Fig 3A , dashed lines). We note that a well-balanced department does not necessarily mean that there are equal numbers of male and female faculty. Instead, we argue that current hiring rates should reflect the graduation rates for males and females. Based on graduation rates for males and females over the past three decades, we suggest that a well-balanced department should be hiring more females than males. This is especially true given that since 1993, 60% of all anthropology doctoral recipients are female ( S6 Table ). To examine disparity in hiring practices, we projected the percentages of males and females hired into tenure-track anthropology positions ( S6 Table ; Fig 3A , solid lines) by their year of graduation using a 3-year moving average. The model shows that although gender equity has greatly improved in recent decades, especially since 1999, males continue to be disproportionately hired into tenure-track positions. We applied the same proportional distribution model to the subfields of archaeology, biological anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology ( Fig 3B–3D ) and projected the percentages of males and females hired within each subdiscipline. Implicit in this model is the idea that the relative percentages of males and females in anthropology are more or less constant across the subfields. Based on our knowledge of the discipline, we believe this to be accurate. Several trends are observed. First, from approximately 1992–2009, the subfields of sociocultural and biological anthropology have been most successful in terms of hiring males and females at rates that reflect the actual percentages of males and females who earned doctorates. In contrast, during the same period, hiring practices in archaeology are strongly biased toward males. Second, since approximately 2009, disparity in hiring has increased. Specifically, males are being hired into sociocultural anthropology positions—which represents about 55% of all anthropology faculty hires—at disproportionately higher rates than females. In biological anthropology, similar trends are observed. Third, since 2009, the number of male archaeologists hired into academic positions has decreased dramatically. Although disparity still exists, more female archaeologists are being hired than previously.

Assuming proportional distribution in hiring and comparable enrollment/completion of males and females among the subfields, solid and dashed lines of the same color should agree. For the discipline as a whole (A), males have been more successful over the past 30 years in obtaining tenure-track jobs relative to the actual percentage of male PhD graduates. From approximately 1992–2009, the subfields of sociocultural (D) and biological anthropology (C) were successful in hiring males and females at rates that reflect the actual percentages of male and female PhD graduates whereas males in archaeology (B) have been systematically hired at disproportionate rates relative to percentages of female graduates. Of note is that disparity in hiring has increased in sociocultural (D) and biological anthropology (C) following the end of the recession in 2009, whereas hiring disparity has decreased in archaeology (B) since 2009.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.g003

Whereas it is informative to understand overall hiring trends of male and female anthropologists, it also of interest to examine the types of anthropology departments into which males and females are being hired. We therefore examined the percentages of males and females hired into three types of anthropology departments: (1) departments that offer a PhD as their highest degree, (2) departments that offer a MA/MS as their highest degree, and (3) departments that offer a BA/BS as their highest degree. We modeled actual hiring rates (based on year of graduation) against NSF graduation rates [ 6 – 8 ] and looked at each type of department in 5-year increments for the period 1985–2014 ( Fig 4 ). The idea here is that assuming all things are equal, males and females should be hired at percentages that reflect graduation rates. For example, if we look at BA/BS departments ( Fig 4C ), we observe that for most of our 5-year increments that males and females are being hired at rates that are proportional to actual graduation rates. In contrast, males are consistently being hired into PhD-granting departments at rates higher than what our proportional distribution model suggests is equitable, while females are being under-hired. For PhD-granting departments ( Fig 4A ), equity in hiring was almost achieved during the period 2005–2009, but during the period 2010–2014, it appears that males are again being over-hired by PhD granting departments. In fact, hiring disparity for this particular group exceeds all other categories since 1985. Additionally, we observe that males have been consistently over-hired into MA/MS departments for the past 30 years ( Fig 4B ).

(A) PhD programs, (B) MA/MS programs, and (C) and BA/BS programs. Males have been systematically over hired into PhD departments (A) and MA/MS For BA/BS departments (C), the percentages of females hired have been more or less equal to the percentage of female PhD graduates with the exception of the period 1990–1994.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.g004

As a final exercise, we examined the percentages of PhDs, by subdiscipline, who have obtained tenure-track positions since 1985 ( Fig 5 ). When we plotted these percentages by year, two trends were apparent. The first trend is related to the ADEA exemption ending mandatory faculty retirements in December 1993. Concurrent with the end of the ADEA exemption, we observe a decrease in faculty positions for all subfields. The second trend directly relates to the financial crisis of 2007–2009 which ultimately led to the worst global recession since the 1930s. At the onset of the recession, academic institutions were forced to enact cost-saving measures, including an increased reliance on NTTF positions. Additionally, some faculty who would have retired or who were approaching retirement chose to delay retirement because the value of their retirement portfolios had been reduced or decimated. As Kaskie [ 21 ] has shown, the median age of faculty now surpasses all other occupational groups in the US. Using the 1982 median age of 30.8 for social scientists at the time of their doctorate [ 27 ], we estimate during the 2014–2015 academic year that approximately 6% of all anthropology faculty were age 70 or higher and that about 14.5% of all anthropology faculty were age 65 or older. The cumulative effect of the recession, increased use of NTTF by higher education institutions, and more anthropology doctorates entering the workforce is readily apparent in Fig 5 (see also S6 Table ). Recent doctoral graduates are simply not successful in obtaining tenure-track faculty jobs at rates anywhere similar to those observed prior to the onset of the 2007 recession.

The 2007–2009 Recession and the transition period for the 1986 Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA) which ended mandatory retirements of tenured faculty effective December 1993 are highlighted. Data for year of graduation are smoothed using a 3-year moving average.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.g005

Our current broader study comes to the same conclusion as our earlier one that focused specifically on archaeology [ 1 ]. That is, obtaining a tenure-track faculty position in anthropology, no matter the subdiscipline, is exceedingly difficult and the harsh reality is that programs across the US produce far more PhDs than can be sustained in the tenure-track job market. As shown in Fig 1 , there has been a steady increase in the numbers of Anthropology PhDs over the past 30 years and recent graduates are increasingly not successful in obtaining faculty positions ( Fig 5 , S6 Table ). This situation is compounded by a number of factors that includes changes to mandatory retirement ages, the recent recession, expansion of graduate programs, and an increase in the use of NTTF by colleges and universities.

Based on NSF data [ 6 – 8 ], we know that between 1995 and 2014 a total of 9,558 Anthropology doctorates (all subfields) were conferred in the US. According to our database, derived from the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide [ 25 ], approximately 1,989 individuals who graduated between 1995 and 2014 from a US institution were employed as tenure-track anthropology faculty at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. These data indicate a faculty employment rate of approximately 21% for those who graduated since 1995. We acknowledge that some programs focus on PhD training for foreign nationals from Latin America, Africa, and/or Asia who then return to their country of origin to pursue academic positions. Nonetheless, it is apparent that only about 1 in 5 US-derived anthropological PhDs is successful in getting a tenure-track faculty position in a US anthropology department. To compound the situation even further, US doctorates face competition from individuals (both US citizens and foreign nationals) who earned doctorates outside the US and in some cases from individuals who earned doctorates from humanities, geoscience, and/or biology programs. As we observed in Table 1 , a total of 5.5% of the market share for individuals who graduated between 1994 and 2014 earned their doctorate in countries outside the US.

The 2007–2009 recession had a profound impact on the numbers of new tenure-track positions in anthropology. A total of 591 individuals who graduated between 2004 and 2009 obtained faculty positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. In contrast, only 304 individuals who completed doctorates between 2010 and 2014 obtained tenure-track jobs. We recognize there is a lag of a few years for most individuals from the time they complete their doctorate until the time they obtain a faculty position; however, we do not expect placement rates to return to pre-recession numbers anytime soon. This situation results in a compounding number of applicants every year. If there are 500 PhD anthropologists who graduate every year for 5 years who are intent on getting a faculty position, and there are only 100 jobs available per year, then by the end of 5 years, there are potentially as many as 2,000 anthropologists (assuming that none have left the job market) competing for 100 faculty positions. In addition, there are many individuals who re-enter the job market after landing their first tenure-track job to move to other types of intuitions or for a host of other reasons. Thus, there is simply no way that such a scenario is feasible long-term—yet this scenario is not far from reality. As shown in Fig 1 , there has been a steady increase in the numbers of Anthropology PhDs over the past 30 years. Although a small fraction of these PhDs have found faculty employment in departments that have recently initiated doctoral programs or in extant programs that have expanded their faculty, new tenure-track positions in anthropology programs cannot keep pace with potential job seekers.

In addition to an overall decrease in new tenure-track positions [ 14 ], one must also consider that the numbers of doctorates awarded annually has been on upward trajectory for the past 30 years. When one also considers that the median age of college and university faculty now surpasses all other occupational groups [ 21 ] in the US, the net result is that longer faculty careers directly translate to a reduction in the rate of new hires. Consequently, academic job prospects for recent doctorates are dismal, not just in anthropology, but for most academic fields.

Not all doctoral programs have high or moderately high placement rates of graduates into faculty positions. It is evident from our study (Tables 1 and 2 and S1 – S4 Tables) that certain programs command a high percentage of the total market share. We recognize that a limitation of our current study is that we cannot account for the number of graduate students admitted, nor graduate degrees conferred, by each department. Some smaller programs may in fact have excellent placement rates, but produce relatively few students, and therefore command a low percentage of the total market share. Conversely, programs that produce many graduates each year can command a high percentage of the market share with even moderate placement rates. Institutions that admit and produce large numbers of PhDs have a competitive advantage in terms of market share. We again emphasize that the “market share” concept does not equate to quality of education or research, nor does it necessarily determine or predict career outcomes. Nonetheless, it is imperative that prospective graduate students with aspirations of landing a tenure-track anthropology position are cognizant of departmental placement rates and consider this information when applying for graduate school.

Disparity in hiring females into tenure-track positions continues to be an issue. Males are consistently hired into academic anthropology positions at rates disproportionate to actual graduation rates. Quite simply, if >60% of all anthropology doctorates are female, then >60% of all new faculty hires also should be female. Our data suggest this is not the case and is an issue that needs to be addressed. It is beyond the scope of this paper to accurately address the root cause for this disparity. The reality—regardless of the root cause—is that between 2004 and 2014 males were being hired more often and into better-paying positions than their female counterparts [ 1 , 28 – 29 ]. Our findings contribute to the larger discussion of gender inequity in anthropology, including two recent studies that have examined why females in anthropological archaeology apply for fewer grants than males after completing their PhDs [ 30 ] and the imbalance in the publication output of males versus females in anthropological archaeology [ 31 ]

Conclusions

The outlook for tenure-track faculty positions in anthropology, as with many other disciplines, is somewhat bleak under our current models of graduate education. In sum, there are several structural components identified here that should make the would-be graduate student with faculty aspirations take pause. First, there is the nature of the job market, coupled with the production of too many PhDs competing for each position. Next, there is the fact that there are extreme disparities in the placement rate of certain programs over others in placing their graduates. Finally, despite some success in mediating gender disparities in hiring practices, these continue to persist throughout anthropology, with some subdisciplines being better than others. While in theory, anthropology is a forward-thinking and progressive discipline, which is certainly reflected in the content that we teach in our graduate seminars, in practice, the numbers point to a conservatism in what is valued in graduate education (i.e., academic success and a tenure-track position). In this way, anthropology is no different from any other discipline. We recognize that these revelations will be perhaps of no surprise to faculty in the trenches of departments everywhere. However, now they are quantified for all to see. Thus, we see this study as anthropology’s call to action, along with other similarly aligned disciplines, to do something about the situation we find our graduates and ourselves in now. The job market has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and now is the time for the model we use to train future anthropologists to also change.

Materials and methods

As described in detail previously [ 1 ] and quoted and paraphrased for context for the current study, the American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) AnthroGuide has been published annually since 1962, and it provides information on a broad range of anthropological institutions such as university departments, museums, and non-profit organizations. As each institution is responsible for providing their own information for inclusion in the AnthroGuide , the volume is not an exhaustive survey of all anthropological institutions [ 32 ]. However, most BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD degree-granting US and Canadian institutions are represented in the guide.

For the purposes of this study, we analyzed data from degree-granting anthropology, and in rare cases archaeology, programs in the US. We did not include data for Canadian anthropology programs, museums, research institutes, nonprofits, private entities, or other organizations. For each degree-granting institution listed in the AnthroGuide [ 25 ], we recorded data for individuals listed as “faculty.” Faculty are considered to be tenure-track individuals who hold the title of “assistant,” “associate,” or “full” professor; however, some departments list individuals in permanent NTTF positions as faculty. In many cases, it appears that these are individuals who graduated from that department or are individuals who received positions via some sort of special hiring consideration (e.g., spousal hires). Information for people classified as anything other than “faculty” was not included in our database. These include categories such as lecturer, staff, post-doc, research staff, adjunct, affiliated, emeritus, museum professional, or anthropologists in other departments.

Relevant information for each individual recorded in our database included: first and last name, employment institution, graduate institution, year of graduation, subfield of expertise, apparent gender, highest degree offered by the employing institution, and current academic rank. The subfield of expertise was recorded based on research interests listed in the AnthroGuide [ 25 ] and faculty pages when interests in the guide were left blank or if clarification was needed.

We classified people into three subfield categories: archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. In our previous paper [ 1 ] we grouped archaeologists and bioarchaeologists together as a single unit (archaeologist). In the current study, bioarchaeologists are grouped with biological anthropologists which we believe better reflects this subfield. The sociocultural anthropology category includes linguists and anyone who is not an archaeologist or biological anthropologist.

Apparent gender was based on our perception of an individual’s first name as it was listed in the AnthroGuide [ 25 ], and verified, as necessary, through faculty webpages or other online resources when an individual’s name was gender-neutral or ambiguous. Academic rank categories we recorded included: assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, and “other” when a different title/rank was listed and the individual was listed as a regular faculty member.

Individuals with foreign (i.e., non-US) degrees represent a substantial portion of our academic population (ca. 5.5%). Although we recorded the institution, these individuals graduated from, for discussion purposes we classify all non-US derived doctoral degrees as “foreign”.

Some colleges and universities have separate anthropology and archaeology programs. We report information for these rare instances for the university as a whole, rather than listing them separately. Additionally, faculty employed within the City University of New York (CUNY) system are oftentimes cross-listed with several CUNY colleges (e.g., Hunter College, John Jay College, and/or Herbert H. Lehman College). For purposes of this study, the entire CUNY system is considered as a single entity.

As described in detail in our previous study [ 1 ], and quoted and paraphrased here for context for the current study, there are several limitations and inherent assumptions:

• We can only see the end-result of the hiring process—who was hired, and where. We cannot account for differences in the quality and/or gender of applicants applying for academic positions in US anthropology departments.
• The nature of our data limits us to a synchronic view of those who held a faculty appointment in a US anthropology department during the 2014–2015 academic year. We do not know how long a person has been employed at that particular department, how long they were on the job market, or how many previous academic positions the individual may (or may not) have had.
• We do not include data for faculty at two-year colleges and technical schools. We recognize that many such schools employ both PhD and MA/MS-level anthropologists and archaeologists. However, our focus here is on tenure-track anthropology positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD granting institutions.
• The number of PhDs produced each year by individual institutions is unknown. Institutions that produce larger numbers of PhDs will potentially have a competitive advantage in terms of market share.
• The number of PhD students admitted each year that have tenure-track faculty job aspirations is unknown. Institutions that admit and produce large numbers of PhDs who desire this career path with have a competitive advantage in terms of market share.
• We do not attempt to, nor can we account for, PhDs working outside of tenure-track anthropology programs in the US (e.g., industry, government, museum, NGOs, etc.) or anthropology PhDs who are faculty in non-anthropology departments or PhDs who have found academic employment in countries other than the US. Our focus here is solely on tenure-track faculty positions in US anthropology departments that offer BA/BS, MA/MS, and/or PhD degrees.
• There is an inherent assumption that anthropology/archaeology faculty have PhDs in anthropology/archaeology. This is not always the case. Some archaeology faculty may have a PhD from a geoscience program, a biology-based program, a humanities-based archeology program, or even a general studies program. These individuals are rare, but it does explain why in a few cases we have listed a university as having produced a PhD when it is apparent that the institution does not have a PhD program in anthropology.
• Not every academic program in the US and Canada reported data for the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide [ 25 ]. We attempted to identify PhD granting departments not listed and add them to our database. Faculty data that have been added to our database using departmental web pages include: Cornell University, Vanderbilt University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stony Brook University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of California Santa Cruz, and the Boston University Archaeology Department.

Supporting information

S1 table. summary of anthropology department (all subfields) market share divided into 10-year increments beginning with 1974..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s001

S2 Table. Summary of archaeology market share divided into 10-year increments beginning with 1974.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s002

S3 Table. Summary of biological anthropology market share divided into 10-year increments beginning with 1974.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s003

S4 Table. Summary of sociocultural anthropology market share divided into 10-year increments beginning with 1974.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s004

S5 Table. Summary statistics for ranking and placement averages by subdiscipline for programs listed in S2 – S4 Tables.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s005

S6 Table. US anthropology doctoral recipients by year relative to numbers of US anthropology doctorates who obtained anthropology faculty positions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202528.s006

Acknowledgments

Data presented in this paper were generated, in part, via a series of graduate courses co-taught by Thompson and Speakman. We thank Jaxk Reeves for his assistance with the statistics used in the paper. Corbin Kling, April Smith, and Maria Jose Rivera Araya are acknowledged for their help in developing the database. We declare there are no competing interests.

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• Graduate Studies in A&S

The Job Market:

Recent PhD’s on Postdocs vs. Tenure-Track Jobs

As in many academic fields, anthropologists emerging from a PhD program often pursue both tenure-track teaching and postdoctoral research positions. What follows is a conversation with four recent Washington University PhD’s in sociocultural anthropology who took both postdocs and tenure track jobs, and all of whom also had to navigate simultaneous offers of both types of position. Their experiences and perspectives will be of interest to those in (or entering) a doctoral program.

• Alison Heller , PhD 2015 (“Interrogating the Superlative Sufferer: Experiencing Obstetric Fistula and Treatment Seeking in Niger”). Currently Asst Prof., Univ of Maryland (since the publication of this page Alison Heller, PhD has taken a position with Facebook as a User Experience Researcher).
• Andrew Flachs , PhD 2016 (“Cultivating Knowledge: The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India”). Currently Asst. Prof., Purdue Univ.
• Elyse Singer , PhD 2017 (“Regulating Reproduction: Abortion Reform and Reproductive Governance in Mexico”). Currently Asst. Prof., Univ. of Oklahoma.
• Adrienne Strong , PhD 2017 (“The Maternity Ward as Mirror: Maternal Death, Biobureaucracy, and Institutional Care in the Tanzanian Health Sector”). Currently Asst. Prof., Univ. of Florida.

What was your experience entering the job market?

ADRIENNE: I applied for both postdocs and TT jobs while I was ABD. I liked the idea of a postdoc better than jumping straight into a TT job because of the time to write and, in my case, the opportunity to do new fieldwork. That year on the job market, I did not get any interviews but did receive the NSF SBE Postdoc Research Fellowship . The major draw of that particular postdoc was the time and funding to do new research, which, I was thinking, would set me up to be more competitive for the TT job market the next time around. It also allows you to design your own program and collaborate with any institution. I wrote the grant to work with the Averting Maternal Death and Disability group at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

ANDREW: I had finished writing my dissertation and was on the job market before I had defended. I had campus interviews at Univ. of Arizona (Anthropology and Food Studies), Appalachian State (Sustainable Development) and Monmouth (Anthropology). Ultimately these positions were offered to other people or the searches couldn't come to a consensus. Meanwhile, I was offered was offered a postdoc through the Washington University Volkswagen Exchange Fellowship, which provides funding for a one-year fellowship at a university in Germany. I took the postdoc. At the time I was disappointed but I've come to see it as a lucky break. I had an incredible year in Heidelberg and then was fortunate enough to have a choice between postdocs and faculty positions the next year.

ALI: I received my Ph.D. in the fall of 2015. I was not offered an academic position that fall but I took a job with World Learning’s International Honors Program (IHP). As a traveling faculty, I led college students in an experiential, comparative medical anthropology and global health program across four continents. During this year of immersive teaching, I applied for tenure-track jobs as well as fellowships. I was invited for five campus visits, accepted three, and was offered three tenure-track jobs in anthropology, including the one at the University of Maryland. At the same time, I was also offered the year-long Campbell Fellowship for Transformative Research on Women in the Developing World at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

ELYSE: I went on the job market ABD in year 6 of the PhD program. I was offered a tenure-track position in anthropology at the University of Oklahoma and also two postdocs: Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University’s Population Studies and Training Center, and a Volkswagen Postdoctoral Fellowship in Berlin.

How did you handle the choice between a TT job and a postdoc?

ELYSE: Choosing between the postdoc and the Oklahoma position was difficult and I spent a lot of time talking with my mentors. As good as the tenure-track position would be, a year to focus entirely on my own work at Brown would obviously be invaluable. In the end I did not have to choose because Oklahoma allowed me to accept the position but defer to take to postdoc first.

ANDREW: I had to choose in my second year out of grad school. During my postdoc in Germany I applied for both postdocs and tenure-track positions, coming back to the States for 4 campus interviews. In the end I was offered 2 other postdocs and 3 tenure-track positions, and as much as I had enjoyed the post-doc in Germany, I was very happy to accept my current position at Purdue.

ADRIENNE: I decided to go back on the job market in the first year of my postdoc, thinking that it would at least be useful practice. But I could be selective in my applications because I still had another year of the postdoc. I got four campus interviews and two offers. The first was at a small university that did not have an anthropology department and was also in a very small town, which seemed a poor fit for my goals and personal life. The position offered at the University of Florida was a great fit – a large university with a good graduate program in a desirable location, and an amazing Center for African Studies. I was hoping to negotiate a later start date in order to complete my postdoc but the university administration would not agree to this. However, I did negotiate more research money, to replace my lost NSF grant funds, and a research leave for Fall semester so I could finish the fieldwork I started.

ALI: During my year with SIT I applied for tenure track jobs as well as fellowships. I was invited for five campus visits, accepted three, and was offered three tenure-track jobs including Univ. of Maryland. At the same time, I was also offered the year-long Campbell Fellowship for Transformative Research on Women in the Developing World at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe . I accepted the job as an Assistant Professor in anthropology at Maryland but was able to negotiate with my new Chair to defer my start date by a year, so I could spend the year in Santa Fe.

How did your postdoc work out for you?

ANDREW: In the postdoc I partnered with anthropologist Daniel Münster at Heidelberg University, whom I had met at a conference while conducting dissertation fieldwork. The postdoc year allowed me to finish articles that I was working on and to start new projects, make major progress on a book, become part of a new academic community in Europe, and organize a conference (papers from which are appearing now in Journal of Political Ecology), pursue new leads from my projects in India, and start a new project Eastern Europe.

ALI: Having a year to write before beginning my tenure-track position was invaluable. In the year I spent at SAR, I had the time and space to read, think, and write—time that I was hard pressed to carve out once I began my tenure-track job. This time without teaching, service, or departmental responsibilities allowed me to line up manuscripts and begin strategizing about publication timelines for my eventual tenure review. By the time I began at UMD, I already had a full book manuscript and a contract along with a few articles out for review, which significantly reduced the stress of the tenure clock that might otherwise have felt oppressive. My book, Fistula Politics: Birthing Injuries and the Quest for Continence in Niger , was published in October 2018.

ADRIENNE: The NSF postdoc gave me time to get some writing done but, in particular, this postdoc also gave me a chance to collaborate with public health people who were also working in Tanzania on maternal health. This was a great opportunity for some interdisciplinary collaboration and potentially an avenue for some of my research to feed into public health program planning in Tanzania. This was also an NSF grant on which I was the PI, which may make me more competitive for future NSF funding. Overall, I think, even if I had been offered a TT position the first year on the market, I probably would have still opted for this postdoc in order to have the chance to conduct another full 11 months of fieldwork on a new project without the tenure clock ticking or other responsibilities.

ELYSE: My postdoc worked out great. I joined a project directed by Matthew Gutmann and am now a paid consultant on the project here at University of Oklahoma. I had ample time to write, think, and rest. It was truly a luxury.

Any other thoughts about post-docs?

ELYSE: I would recommend that current PhD students apply for all postdocs that match their qualifications and don't entail an unreasonable amount of work for money (I chose not to apply for the postdocs that require a themed essay on topics not directly related to my research, or that charged for the application). I’d also say that while a postdoc year is a very privileged position, it can also be oddly disruptive to bounce around from position to position without a sense of stability.

ANDREW: My postdoc not only allowed me to catch my breath at the end of my PhD, but made me much better prepared for the job market. There's no chance that I would have been as successful in going after my current job without this year to rethink and plan. All of this ultimately set up for my first year as a faculty member at Purdue University, because I was already moving along with publications and grants and I had time to begin prepping classes at the end of my postdoc. There was a big adjustment from this very flexible schedule where I was focusing completely on my own work to the more rigid schedule of an academic department, but at least I could hit the ground running with research and teaching as I learned how to navigate a new university, advise students, and contribute to departmental committees. Academia has turned out to be a great job for me, but it can be an all-consuming profession. One benefit of the postdoc, especially one based in Europe, was learning to treat academic life as a job (when possible), and learning how to leave work at the office so that I could come home. Obviously, postdocs don't offer the same job security as a tenure-track position and I enjoyed my opportunity much more after I accepted my job offer in the spring. Still, I'd recommend the opportunity unequivocally. Now that I've been on the other side of a job search, it makes a huge difference when someone can articulate how and where their career is going.

ADRIENNE: In addition to being able to do the fieldwork, I think the extra time from the postdoc allowed me to get some perspective on my projects, research trajectory, and theoretical contributions. I’ve submitted some articles, as well as my book prospectus. The experience working with public health people offered by the postdoc was informative, but definitively convinced me I would rather have a TT job in an anthropology department than try to work with public health people, which had been an option I'd been considering while still in grad school. Being able to test out this type of collaboration before jumping into as a longer-term job was extremely valuable.

ALI: In some ways, I did not fully appreciate my post-doc year until it was over. I was anxious that year about starting my TT job, and also craving the stability that moving to a place and setting down roots would afford me. But after a few months in my TT job, it was clear how useful my post-doc had been, how lucky I was to have been given the space and time to write without pressure. I was in a much better position to succeed because of that year of relative unconstraint.

The job market for anthropologists in the United States

There are currently an estimated 7,600 anthropologists in the United States. The anthropologist job market is expected to grow by 3.9% between 2016 and 2026.

How employable are anthropologists?

CareerExplorer rates anthropologists with a F employability rating, meaning this career should provide poor employment opportunities for the foreseeable future. Over the next 10 years, it is expected the US will need 6,400 anthropologists. That number is based on 300 additional anthropologists, and the retirement of 6,100 existing anthropologists.

Are anthropologists in demand?

Due to the small size of the anthropologist sector, even high growth rates in the field do not lead to many additional job opportunities. Furthermore, growth of research jobs with public institutions is generally determined by federal budget dollars and allocation of grant funds. This fact has led to employment of anthropologists in less traditional settings. Business, consulting, and cultural resource management (CRM) firms are predicted to produce most available positions, largely because more corporations will rely on anthropologists to help them understand diverse workforces, economic development issues, and changing consumer markets. Newly graduated anthropologists unable to immediately secure research posts may also find work as archivists, curators, or college professors. Anthropologists who conduct research typically hold a Master’s or Doctorate Degree. Candidates with a Bachelor’s Degree are often employed as fieldwork assistants. Because of the small number of positions overall, prospects will be best for job seekers with a Ph.D, extensive fieldwork experience, and knowledge of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The field of anthropology will continue to expand beyond its traditional job markets of research and academia. Just as businesses and management firms have done, other sectors will call upon anthropologists to apply their expertise in new ways. All levels of government will look to the field of anthropology to improve their planning, managerial, and cultural resource assessment capacities. Police departments and other security sectors will increasingly recognize the value of anthropologic science in forensics, disaster assistance, and identifying mysterious or unknown remains. Non-profit and non-governmental organizations, especially in the areas of health and the environment, are more and more recognizing the value of anthropologists in designing and implementing a wide variety of programs.

What’s the supply of anthropologists?

The anthropologist industry is concentrated in California, Arizona, New Mexico

Anthropologist job market by state

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Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions

• Anthropology

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Between 1985 and 2014, the number of US doctoral graduates in Anthropology increased from about 350 to 530 graduates per year. This rise in doctorates entering the work force along with an overall decrease in the numbers of tenure-track academic positions has resulted in highly competitive academic job market. We estimate that approximately79% of US anthropology doctorates do not obtain tenure-track positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. Here, we examine where US anthropology faculty obtained their degrees and where they ultimately end up teaching as tenure-track faculty. Using data derived from the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide and anthropology departmental web pages, we identify and rank PhD programs in terms of numbers of graduates who have obtained tenure-track academic jobs; examine long-term and ongoing trends in the programs producing doctorates for the discipline as a whole, as well as for the subfields of archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology; and discuss gender inequity in academic anthropology within the US.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

• General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
• General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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• 10.1371/journal.pone.0202528

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• hiring Agriculture & Biology 100%
• anthropology Agriculture & Biology 92%
• Anthropology Medicine & Life Sciences 85%
• market share Agriculture & Biology 82%
• Force Chemical Compounds 44%
• Archaeology Medicine & Life Sciences 18%
• archaeology Agriculture & Biology 16%
• labor market Agriculture & Biology 16%

T1 - Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions

AU - Speakman, Robert J.

AU - Hadden, Carla S.

AU - Colvin, Matthew H.

AU - Cramb, Justin

AU - Jones, K. C.

AU - Jones, Travis W.

AU - Lulewicz, Isabelle

AU - Napora, Katharine G.

AU - Reinberger, Katherine L.

AU - Ritchison, Brandon T.

AU - Edwards, Alexandra R.

AU - Thompson, Victor D.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Speakman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2018/9

Y1 - 2018/9

N2 - Between 1985 and 2014, the number of US doctoral graduates in Anthropology increased from about 350 to 530 graduates per year. This rise in doctorates entering the work force along with an overall decrease in the numbers of tenure-track academic positions has resulted in highly competitive academic job market. We estimate that approximately79% of US anthropology doctorates do not obtain tenure-track positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. Here, we examine where US anthropology faculty obtained their degrees and where they ultimately end up teaching as tenure-track faculty. Using data derived from the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide and anthropology departmental web pages, we identify and rank PhD programs in terms of numbers of graduates who have obtained tenure-track academic jobs; examine long-term and ongoing trends in the programs producing doctorates for the discipline as a whole, as well as for the subfields of archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology; and discuss gender inequity in academic anthropology within the US.

AB - Between 1985 and 2014, the number of US doctoral graduates in Anthropology increased from about 350 to 530 graduates per year. This rise in doctorates entering the work force along with an overall decrease in the numbers of tenure-track academic positions has resulted in highly competitive academic job market. We estimate that approximately79% of US anthropology doctorates do not obtain tenure-track positions at BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD institutions in the US. Here, we examine where US anthropology faculty obtained their degrees and where they ultimately end up teaching as tenure-track faculty. Using data derived from the 2014–2015 AnthroGuide and anthropology departmental web pages, we identify and rank PhD programs in terms of numbers of graduates who have obtained tenure-track academic jobs; examine long-term and ongoing trends in the programs producing doctorates for the discipline as a whole, as well as for the subfields of archaeology, bioanthropology, and sociocultural anthropology; and discuss gender inequity in academic anthropology within the US.

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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85053124268&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0202528

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0202528

M3 - Article

C2 - 30208048

AN - SCOPUS:85053124268

SN - 1932-6203

JO - PloS one

JF - PloS one

M1 - e0202528

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Contributed Content Member Voices

The Invisible Labor of the Academic Job Market

From the Series: Academic Precarity in American Anthropology: A Forum

By Jordan Kraemer

February 12, 2018

Cite As: Kraemer, Jordan. 2018. "The Invisible Labor of the Academic Job Market." Member Voices, Fieldsights , February 12. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/the-invisible-labor-of-the-academic-job-market

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David Platzer and Anne Allison’s essay on academic precarity in American anthropology is both sobering and coldly reassuring. In the five years since earning my PhD, I have held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship and taught as a contingent academic while interviewing for numerous tenure-track positions. As a media anthropologist whose primary field site is in Europe, there are few positions for which I am a fit. And with family commitments, my geographic mobility has only decreased over time. In the past year, I have directed more energy into nonacademic writing as I struggle to find a career that is satisfying and socially engaged. The issues Platzer and Allison raise are all too familiar for those of us languishing on the job market, often in revolving term and adjunct positions, as we try to maintain some sense of academic legitimacy. Rarely does the discipline confront the difficulties—and distress—of the job market in such a public forum. In my response to the essay, I want to draw attention to some unseen costs of laboring with little hope of finding secure academic employment, drawing out in particular the gendered and affective dimensions of “the market” that contingent anthropologists often confess only to one another.

If the cratering number of tenure-track positions since 2008 is dismaying, Platzer and Allison’s findings also offer a strange sense of relief. Too often, job seekers internalize their struggles as individual rather than structural failings—an ironic habit of thought for scholars who regularly argue against neoliberal selfhood and accountability. As Platzer and Allison describe, graduate programs train students for jobs that mostly no longer exist. This predilection fosters unrealistic expectations, exacerbating deeply personal feelings of failure. Students often infer that if they secure prestigious funding, publish in top journals, and produce exceptional work, they will prevail. Consultants like Karen Kelsky extend this logic (perhaps fairly) to job dossiers; if candidates better understand the expectations of search committees, the story goes, they have a shot at beating the odds. As one of Platzer and Allison’s participants reported, her advisors offered little sympathy for her plight as an adjunct instructor with a family: “Instead, they reassured her that her scholarship was excellent and that it was simply a matter of persistence.” With many fewer positions than new PhDs each year (and stiff competition from those already on the market), such reassurances are warped and warping. A distorted view of the market keeps contingent academics from finding other ways to work as anthropologists.

As Platzer and Allison acknowledge, their findings offer little solace for current students and recent PhDs seeking economic stability, even as instability carries consequences for the sensibilities of anthropological research. Platzer and Allison touch briefly on the gendered and racial inequalities that plague academic employment, but I would add that it's no coincidence that most of my friends and colleagues lingering on the margins are women, most with young children. Numerous studies show that women, especially mothers, are less likely than male colleagues to achieve tenure and more likely to hold adjunct and contingent positions (Monroe et al. 2008; Finkelstein, Martin Conley, and Schuster 2016)—what Mary Ann Mason, Nicholas Wolfringer, and Marc Goulden (2013, 66) call the “baby gap.” Unsurprisingly, these struggles intersect with race, class, and other categories of difference (Gutierrez y Muhs et al. 2012). In the sciences, women with children are 35 percent less likely than their male peers to accept a tenure-track position and 27 percent less likely to achieve tenure. The same study found that women without young children take such positions at a similar rate as married fathers and are slightly more likely to achieve tenure than married mothers. Married men with children face no such obstacles. The very conditions that favor flexible, contingent positions also advantage white male academics.

For women on the tenure track, especially women of color, service expectations remain a further barrier to promotion (including diversity initiatives that fall disproportionately to women of color). Service work, and what many call invisible labor , comprises an insidious forms of structural disadvantage for women and contingent academics. Although many articles have addressed the emotional and care work women shoulder, few consider the unpaid work of remaining in academia. Publishing, for example, involves months of writing and revising that takes years to see in print. This protracted timeline hampers contingent faculty trying to compete for tenure-track jobs and also pursue alternative careers. As a postdoc, I was glad to accept service and review opportunities as signs of my scholarly legitimacy. But as a precarious academic, I now turn down most such requests as a matter of principle.

For contingent academics, such requests entail unremunerated work that, after a point, confer little benefit. Perhaps this assessment on my part sounds transactional, but contingency comes with a cost to one’s sense of belonging and identity as a scholar. With no formal appointment, cobbling together teaching gigs, many in the precariat experience a loss of selfhood along with deep shame at our perceived failures—despite laundry lists of achievements like book contracts and top-tier articles. Graduate school does not prepare students for the dissonance of being recognized as an expert in one’s specialization yet floundering on the market.

This unseen labor makes it difficult to compete for tenure-track jobs, and it consumes time that could be spent adapting scholarly skills for alt-academic careers and building new professional networks. Leaving academia, then, means relinquishing the visible and invisible labor of the academic job market. For me, seriously pursuing another career involves disentangling myself from scholarly commitments. This reality binds those who hold out for a tenure-track job, while taking an emotional toll that precarious anthropologists rarely discuss publicly.

Platzer and Allison’s essay counters many myths that precarious academics—and their mentors—have absorbed, reinforcing the necessity of reforming graduate training. I arrived at my doctoral program envisioning a career in nonprofit research, yet have found few such opportunities for scholars without legal or journalistic training. Anthropologists are poorly represented in policy and related fields, something doctoral programs could work to remedy. Graduate programs could, for instance, prepare students early on to produce op-eds and white papers as well as ethnographies. Senior scholars could build connections to researchers and policymakers outside of academia. In my prior career at a liberal policy magazine, scholars in sociology, political science, and economics regularly contributed. Anthropologists can cultivate similar spaces for their distinctive approaches and perspectives—while simultaneously challenging the corporatization of the university. Although ethnographic methods have spread to fields like marketing and user experience, many anthropologists pursue graduate work because of commitments to social change and critical analysis. We can take inspiration from social-science disciplines that are better integrated into media and policy worlds to carve out opportunities that incorporate our interpretive perspectives and political commitments.

Finally, graduate programs must grapple with the ethical considerations that Platzer and Allison raise. This includes collecting and sharing placement information with prospective students. Faculty mentors must rethink how they advise and professionalize their students—beyond strategizing about publishing and grants—by engaging with new possibilities for anthropology and recognizing the toll precarity takes. For contingent academics, the affective and gendered dimensions of the job market shape our daily lives—and selves—in ways that require critical engagement.

Finkelstein, Martin, Martin Conley, Valerie, and Jack H. Schuster. 2016. “ Taking the Measure of Faculty Diversity .” Advancing Higher Education report, TIAA Institute.

Gutiérrez y Muhs, Gabriella, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, and Angela P. Harris, eds. 2012. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia . Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Mason, Mary Ann, Wolfinger, Nicholas H. and Marc Goulden. 2013. Do Babies Matter? Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower . New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Monroe, Kristen, Saba Ozyurt, Ted Wrigley, and Amy Alexander. 2008. “ Gender Equality in Academia: Bad News from the Trenches and Some Possible Solutions .” Perspectives on Politics 6, no. 2: 215-33.

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What is Anthropology? Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present. To understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences.

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Visiting assistant professor of anthropology.

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Bowdoin College Department of Anthropology full-time, benefits-eligible Visiting Assistant Professor in cultural anthropology for 24/25 AY

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The Bucknell NSF RED project is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join the effort to integrate convergent problems..

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• Lewiston, Maine
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The Department of Anthropology at Bates College is seeking to hire a sociocultural anthropologist for a one-year position, starting August 1, 2024....

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• Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at SIUE to teach applied cultural anthropology in support of Black, Latinx, or Native American studies.

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NAGPRA Coordinator

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Visiting Assistant Professor in Biological Anthropology

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VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY

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One-year visiting; socio-cultural candidates; environmental anthropology, environmental justice, economic anthropology, anthropology of food

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William Wyse Professorship of Social Anthropology

• Cambridge, Cambridgeshire (GB)
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• University of Cambridge, Department of Archaeology

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Assistant Professor (Southeast Asia: Digital Studies, STS, Economics and/or Religious Studies)

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Anthropology

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History/Anthropology-Adjunct Faculty (Pool)

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Assistant Director, Archaeology Institute 112170

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Assistant/Associate Professor- Indigenous Environmental Science Faculty Cluster - College of Environ

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• College of Environmental Science and Forestry

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Museum Interpreter

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Part Time Faculty, Anthropology

• The Loop, Illinois
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Adjunct Faculty, Anthropology

• Hempstead, New York
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About Hofstra At Hofstra University, intellectual curiosity is not just aspirational - it is central to how we engage on a daily basis. Hofstra fac...

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Adjunct, Anthropology

• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Salt Lake Community College

Under general supervision, the instructor will teach various Anthropology classes within the Anthropology program. Faculty member may be assigned t...

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Head Curator-UTSA Libraries & Museums

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Job Market Trends For Recent Anthropology Grads

Published: April 30, 2021

Author: Eric Haanstad

Given the change of course that has happened in the world, we wanted to provide expert opinions on what aspiring graduates can do to start off their careers in an uncertain economic climate. We wanted to know what skills will be more important, where the economy is doing relatively well, and if there will be any lasting effects on the job market.

Companies are looking for candidates that can handle the new responsibilities of the job market. Recent graduates actually have an advantage because they are comfortable using newer technologies and have been communicating virtually their whole lives. They can take what they've learned and apply it immediately.

We spoke to professors and experts from several universities and companies to get their opinions on where the job market for recent anthropology graduates is heading, as well as how young graduates entering the industry can be adequately prepared. Here are their thoughts.

Congratulations on getting your degree. Now welcome to a tricky job market.

College seniors will don graduation gowns this month before jumping into a job market that isn’t quite as hungry for their diplomas as it is for skills learned outside of four-year schools.

Employers added 175,000 jobs in April , the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, below analysts’ expectations and a sign that hiring is slowing down across the economy. Some of the strongest gains were in health care, retail and the transportation and warehousing sector — industries where part-time and nondegree roles are plentiful.

“Not every sector is hiring that a new college grad would want to target based on their education level,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at the private payroll processor ADP, told reporters on Wednesday.

Her remarks came on the heels of ADP’s own report this week that found that the biggest private-sector job growth was in leisure and hospitality, construction and several other fields that don’t often require college credentials.

The heavily white-collar information sector, on the other hand, which includes many roles in media and technology, posted job losses and the slowest pay gains since summer 2021, ADP found.

Meanwhile, Friday’s BLS data showed that the number of people employed part-time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs ticked up slightly to 4.5 million in April, higher than the 3.9 million level a year ago.

“I don’t think that’s the dream of many college students — to graduate and go part-time immediately,” Richardson said.

Compared with today, the past few graduating classes found “the opportunities were very plentiful,” said Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, a labor market research group. “Employers were falling over themselves to hire them.” Since then, he said, “It’s gotten more challenging for sure.”

A federal survey released this week revealed that total job openings had slowed to a three-year low in March, while total job separations — including quits, layoffs and discharges — decreased by nearly 340,000.

More than 40% of college seniors said they planned to pursue freelance or gig work after walking across the stage, a recent survey by the job marketplace Handshake found. Almost a third expected to do so on top of a full-time role.

While that isn’t exactly a new trend among fresh grads, who often cobble together multiple income streams in their first year or two out of school, it could signal that they’re bracing for a tough long-term job search. It’s something of a silver lining that part-time hiring is still going strong.

Experts said there may be others, too. As layoffs in tech and elsewhere continue, skill vacuums in sectors like health care might create new opportunities to excel quickly, Berger said.

After the 2008-09 financial crisis, “You started seeing a lot of the MBAs [and] Ph.D.s previously going into finance start drifting toward tech,” he said. “The key question is whether we start seeing the reverse, where that talent that was really flowing to tech starts to show up in other sectors.”

The class of 2024 will need to be more nimble and should consider “retooling their skills and orientation toward sectors that are hiring,” Berger added.

That might include strengthening qualities beyond subject-area expertise: The top skills employers of all sizes are prioritizing among new hires include all-purpose basics, like “strong work ethic,” the ability to work on a team and strong interpersonal skills, according to a recent ADP survey .

Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, said “the keys for those who are graduating college — as well as members of the workforce aspiring to find new employment — are possessing the right skills, being in the right location and then, obviously, finding their way toward an enterprise organization where they can be a good fit.”

In other words, demand for white-collar workers may be softening , but the fundamentals of job searching still apply. And in any case, the hiring climate for new grads could be a whole lot worse — just ask the nearest millennial .

“The measures speak to a labor market that’s still relatively robust,” Hamrick said.

J.J. McCorvey is a business and economy reporter for NBC News.

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Class of 2024, It’s Not in Your Head: The Job Market Is Tough

By Peter Coy

Opinion Writer

Here is a brutal fact for the college class of 2024: There aren’t enough college-level jobs out there for all of you. Some of you will snag them. Others will have to settle for jobs that don’t require a college education. And history shows that many of those who start out in a job that doesn’t require a college education are still toiling in that kind of job a decade later.

One mystery is why college grads’ lifetime earnings are so much higher than those of people with just a high school degree or less, if indeed so many college grads don’t do college-graduate-level work. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’ll also finish on a slightly hopeful note.

I invite college seniors to tell me about your job searches and how you feel about what you learned or wish you had learned in college by filling out the form below. Parents and employers are also welcome to write in. (And forward it to others who you think would be interested in contributing by using the gift link in the article’s share tools.) I hope to feature some of your responses in a future newsletter.

Fifty-two percent of college grads are underemployed a year after graduation, meaning they are working in jobs that don’t require the degrees they earned, according to a February report by the Burning Glass Institute, which analyzes the job market, and the Strada Institute for the Future of Work.

Five years out from school, about 88 percent of those who are underemployed are “severely” underemployed, the report said. These are the top five jobs they’re doing: information and record clerk, supervisor of sales, retail sales worker, sales representative in services, and secretary and administrative assistant.

“Even a decade after graduation, 45 percent of graduates are underemployed,” the report said.

The best way to avoid underemployment is to pick a major that employers want and to complete an internship, Burning Glass found. If you didn’t do those things and you’re a few weeks from commencement without a job lined up … um, potentially not good.

I dug a little deeper into this rather depressing report by interviewing the president of the Burning Glass Institute, Matt Sigelman, along with other labor market experts.

The first thing I asked Sigelman is whether the United States is generating too many college graduates, oversupplying the market and setting up a lot of graduates for disappointment.

“In the immediate term, it’s hard to conclude otherwise,” he said. He added that the supply-demand imbalance has gotten worse in the past four years because the strongest growth has been in jobs that have lower educational qualifications.

In the longer term, Sigelman said, “I do believe that America benefits from having a highly educated work force.” He added: “Demand for talent is not fixed. The center of gravity of our economy is increasingly in the knowledge economy. Jobs follow talent.”

That makes sense. Over time, employers should seize the opportunity to profit by reconfiguring jobs to make full use of the talent that’s currently being underused. They’ve been finding ways to put brains to work since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a time when even a high school diploma was rare and special.

In the here and now, you’re in pretty good shape if you studied computer science, engineering, mathematics or math-intensive business fields such as finance and accounting, according to Burning Glass’s research. Education and health majors are also sought after.

Not so in demand: graduates in public safety and security, recreation and wellness studies and general business fields such as marketing.

Employers are desperate to hire accounting majors, Michael Steinitz, the senior executive director of professional talent solutions at Robert Half International, a human resources consulting firm, told me.

New college grads in general are attractive to employers because they tend to be tech savvy, they cost less and they can be trained for whatever needs employers have, Steinitz said.

Underemployment of college grads is not a new problem. If anything, grads’ prospects are better than usual because of the low overall unemployment rate (3.8 percent in March). In an informal survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 83 percent of employers expected to increase or maintain the rate of hiring of new grads this spring, roughly the same as last year but down from 2022, when employers were hiring aggressively coming out of the pandemic.

I want to come back to the paradox that pay for college grads is relatively high even though they appear to be in surplus. I think the biggest reason is that the average numbers for college grads are pulled up a lot by those who make it big.

There are some blue-collar jobs, such as truck driver and plumber, that pay well but have a flat lifetime earnings profile — that is, a 55-year-old truck driver doesn’t make a lot more than a 25-year-old one. In contrast, white-collar jobs that require college degrees tend to have more growth potential in know-how and thus in earnings.

“College acts as a gateway to professional occupations, which offer more opportunity for wage growth through on-the-job learning,” David Deming, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School, writes in the abstract of a new working paper.

The classes of ’25, ’26 and beyond could have it rougher because artificial intelligence could come to perform some of the functions of new hires, knocking out the lowest rungs on the career ladder.

The (partial) solution is to develop a mix of skills that’s hard for A.I. to duplicate. The most successful grads have a combination of technical skills and what might be broadly called people skills, including the ability to communicate in print and in person, motivate and work in teams. Examples from Sigelman: data scientists who are good at writing and humanities majors in marketing who learn structured query language.

“If you were to design universities from scratch” with employers’ needs in mind, Deming told me, they would focus a lot more on teaching teamwork and the broad range of skills that are needed in the workplace.

Such ideas are of little use to today’s jobless seniors, of course. Then again, there will be many opportunities to overcome a poor start. Deming is guardedly optimistic, despite Burning Glass’s warnings. Life is long. He did a quick calculation for me, based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, that about 60 percent of the college grads who start in a non-college-level job find their way into a managerial or professional occupation eventually.

“It’s definitely better to get a good first job than not to get a good first job,” Deming said. But “the jury is out on this idea that if you don’t get a good job right out of college, all is lost.”

2024 college grads, how’s that job market looking?

If you expect to graduate from college this spring or winter, Times Opinion wants to hear from you.

Outlook: Consumers Are Hurting

“The savings rate is falling, and interest paid on mounting debt is spiraling higher, suggesting consumers may be nearing the breaking point,” Dana Peterson, the chief economist of the Conference Board, a business-supported research group, wrote on Friday. She added, “Our call for slower real G.D.P. growth over the second and third quarters still makes sense.” Higher-than-expected inflation has made interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve to buoy the economy less likely, Peterson wrote.

Quote of the Day

“Complex adaptive systems have the property that if you run them — by just letting the mathematical variable of ‘time’ go forward — they’ll naturally progress from chaotic, disorganized, undifferentiated, independent states to organized, highly differentiated and highly interdependent states.”

— J. Doyne Farmer in “The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution,” edited by John Brockman (1995)

Peter Coy is a writer for the Opinion section of The Times, covering economics and business. Email him at [email protected] . @ petercoy

Media Monarchy

Moscow metro blasts: another fsb inside job.

“ The first explosion took place on a train after it had stopped in the Lubyanka station in central Moscow , close to the headquarters of Russia’s FSB security service, a spokeswoman for the Russian emergencies ministry told AFP .”

“ The first blast at the Lubyanka metro station killed 22 people and wounded 12 . The second at Park Kulturi station left 12 dead and 7 wounded ,” reported AFP . Russian Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov has already blamed Chechen rebels for the attack, an explanation slavishly accepted by western media outlets like the BBC who are already running feature articles about the history of terrorism in Russia that completely fail to mention the FSB’s direct role in almost every major attack to have taken place over the last 10 years .

Since the explanation that two female suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their bodies were responsible for the bombing has come directly from the FSB , past history means we can only treat the official story with the utmost suspicion.

The notorious Russian FSB has a documented history of staging false flag events in order to accomplish political agendas .

update: bombs kill 12 in russia’s dagestan region from cnn : Twelve people – nine of them police officers – were killed Wednesday when two bombs exploded in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan , officials told CNN. Another 23 people, including 11 police officers, were hospitalized with wounds from the bombings, at least one of which was carried out by a suicide bomber, according to a spokesman for the Dagestan police and Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigative Committee in the Russian prosecutor general’s office. It happened two days after female suicide bombers killed at least 39 people on the Moscow metro .

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• Assisting Project Managers and Directors with all the paperwork involved during the flow of business,

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• Years of Experience: 3-25 years of experience
• Graduated School: Business, Economics, Accounting to similar disciplines
• Level of Education:  High School ( Graduate ), Bachelor's ( Graduate )
• Languages: English ( Reading: Advanced, Writing: Advanced, Speaking: Advanced
• Microsoft Office: Excel, Powerpoint, Word ( Advanced )

Position Information

• Company Industry:  Aluminium, Building, Architecture
• Job Type:  Permanent / Full-time
• Position Level:  Staff
• Job Location: United Kingdom, London

• Data library

2024 Top Rental Markets for Recent College Graduates

With graduation season on the horizon, Realtor.com® compiled a list of rental markets tailored to recent college graduates, highlighting cities that offer a harmonious mix of affordable renting options, job opportunities, and appealing lifestyle amenities.

We ranked towns and cities according to a list of key guiding criteria that could be important to recent college graduates. We ranked 313 cities and towns with a population of more than 75,000 that are located within the 50 largest metro areas. The rankings are based on the following factors:  

Metro-level factors

• A measure of rental affordability, estimated by rent-to-income ratio for households between 25 and 34 years old
• A measure of rental availability, estimated by rental vacancy rate
• A measure of the job market’s favorability toward recent college graduates, estimated by the share of new college graduate-friendly occupations
• A measure of job stability, estimated by the forecasted unemployment rate
• A measure of job opportunities, estimated by the online job opening data

City-level factors

• Share of recent college graduates in the city
• Average commute time to work
• A measure of the culture and liveliness of an area, estimated by the count of restaurants , cafes , bars , shopping establishments, and other lifestyle businesses such as theaters , comedy clubs , and arts classes as listed on Yelp  

Based on the above criteria, and a cap of one city per metropolitan area to allow for a greater diversity of options, these are the Realtor.com Top 10 Rental Markets for Recent College Graduates for 2024:

Table 1: Top Rental Markets for Recent College Graduates

While these cities ranked highly overall, many still have strengths and weaknesses that require prospective renters to consider trade-offs between the availability and affordability of rentals, the strength of the employment market, and access to lifestyle. 

More affordable rental options

The rent-to-income ratio for households aged between 25 and 34 represents the portion of their typical gross income allocated to housing expenses. A lower rent-to-income ratio is preferred because it suggests that housing costs are a smaller proportion of a typical monthly paycheck, which can mean more monthly budget is available for other expenses.

The top markets as a group are located in metro areas that have an average rent-to-income ratio of 22.5% for households aged between 25 and 34, suggesting rents made up 22.5% of a typical young household income, on average. This figure is lower than both the town/city average of 29.7% and the average of the top 50 metros, which stands at 26.1%.

Among the top 10 markets, the rent-to-income ratio spans 19.9% to 26.7%. Specifically, Bloomington, MN, located within the Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington metro area (19.9%), emerges as the most affordable top-ranked rental market within the top markets.

Additionally, Overland Park and St. Louis within the Kansas City metro area (20.7%) and St. Louis metro area (21.7%) both rank high for affordability within the top 10 list. This observation aligns with our previous findings indicating that Midwest markets tend to have greater affordability .

Plenty of rental properties to choose from

The rental vacancy rate measures the not-currently-lived-in supply of homes for rent, and can be a proxy for how easily potential renters could find a place to live. A higher rental vacancy rate means renters could have an abundance of rental properties to choose from and may wield greater bargaining power when negotiating with landlords .  

The top markets as a group are located within metro areas that have an average rental vacancy rate of 7.6%, surpassing both the town/city average of 6.3% and the average of the top 50 metros, which stands at 6.8%.

Among the top 10 markets, the rental vacancy rate ranges from 4.9% to 9.0%. Austin, TX, within the Austin–Round Rock metro area (9.0%), boasts the highest rental vacancy rate. Additionally, cities in the Southern metros such as Atlanta, in the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metro (8.7%), and Raleigh, NC, from the Raleigh metro (8.7%), both rank prominently for rental availability.

One possible explanation for the higher vacancy rates in the South could be the surge in new multifamily construction and completion in that region , which expands the overall rental inventory.

Higher share of recent college graduate-friendly occupations

A market with a higher proportion of recent college graduate-friendly occupations implies that new graduates may encounter less difficulty entering the workforce and securing positions that match their skills and qualifications, rendering these markets more appealing.

To define these roles, Realtor.com leveraged data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics , categorizing occupations that require a bachelor’s degree but no prior experience as recent college graduate-friendly.

The top markets as a group are located within metro areas where an average of 25.8% of occupations are recent college graduate-friendly, exceeding both the town/city average of 23.9% and the average of the top 50 metros, which stands at 24.5%.

In the top 10 markets, the share of recent college graduate-friendly occupations ranged from 22.1% to 29.6%. Austin, TX, part of the Austin–Round Rock metro area and home to many tech-fueled company offices, including Realtor.com , leads with 29.6% of occupations in this category. Austin is followed by Raleigh, NC, in the Raleigh metro area, with 28.8%, and Bloomington, MN, in the Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington metro area, with 26.7%.

More stable job markets

A lower forecasted unemployment rate suggests that recent college graduates could encounter less competition when seeking employment, and better job security, which will help to launch their careers and achieve their professional goals.

The top markets as a group are located within metro areas that have an average forecasted 2024 unemployment rate of 3.6%, lower than the 4.2% town/city average and forecasted metro average of 4.0%.

Among the top 10 markets, the unemployment rate ranged from 3.1% to 4.2%. Bloomington, MN, within the Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington metro area (3.1%) is forecasted to have the lowest unemployment rate in 2024 among the top 50 metros, followed by Austin, TX, in the Austin-Round Rock metro area with a rate of 3.3%, and Raleigh, NC, Overland Park, KS, and Richmond, VA, whose surrounding metros are all forecasted to have an unemployment rate of 3.4% in 2024.   

More job opportunities

The online job opening is measured by Indeed Job Posting Index . The index has been normalized to 100 as of February 2020. As a result, the higher the index is, the faster the job market growth when compared with the pre-COVID-19 pandemic baseline. 

The top markets as a group are located within metro areas that have an average online job posting index of 129, higher than the 121 town/city average and the 124 metro average. 

Within the top 10 cities, the average index ranged between 114 and 166. Specifically, Scottsdale within Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metro (166) experienced the highest increase in job openings when compared with the pre-pandemic period. Additionally, cities in Atlanta, GA, from Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metro (134) and Pittsburgh, PA, from Pittsburgh metro (131) both rank high for job openings. 

High share of recent college graduates

Living in markets with a high share of recent college graduates can benefit recent graduates by providing a supportive environment, networking opportunities, and access to entry-level jobs. This enhances the transition from college to the workforce and fosters professional and personal growth. 

The top cities on our list boast an average recent college graduate share of 3.4%, higher than the town/city average of 1.9%. 

Among the top 10 cities, the share of recent college graduates ranged from 2.5% to 4.4%. Notably, Pittsburgh, PA (4.4%), boasts the highest share, followed by Atlanta, GA (4.2%), and Richmond, VA (3.7%). 

Shorter commutes to work

Although people may opt for affordable rentals by searching farther from urban areas, the time spent on longer commutes can sometimes outweigh the monetary savings. 

The top cities on our list boast an average expected commute time of 25 minutes in 2024, which is shorter than the city/town average of 30 minutes. This translates to a potential saving of 43 hours per year for a commuter traveling five days a week.

Among the top 10 cities, commute times ranged from 22 to 28 minutes. Notably, Overland Park, KS, boasts the shortest average commute time of 22 minutes. Situated near major highways like Interstates 35 and 425, as well as significant thoroughfares such as Metcalf Avenue and College Boulevard, Overland Park offers efficient transportation options for its residents. Bloomington, MN, and Scottsdale, AZ, were not far behind; both have an average commute time of 23 minutes. 

A fun place to live

The top cities and towns boast a greater abundance of entertainment, shopping, and lifestyle establishments , as measured using point of interest data provided by Yelp . These establishments encompass a variety of venues such as restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, theaters, comedy clubs, and art studios. 

As a group, these top cities and towns have 23.9 of these businesses per 1,000 households, surpassing the average for all cities and towns, which stands at 19.3.

Among the top 10 markets, the number of businesses per 1,000 households ranged between 17.1 and 39.5.  Specifically, Beaverton, OR, claimed the highest position within the top 10 list, boasting a ratio of 39.5. Following closely are Atlanta, GA, with a ratio of 27.5, and Scottsdale, AZ, with a ratio of 25.2.

Data source and methodology

For the purpose of the research, we ranked 313 cities and towns with a population of more than 75,000 that are located within the 50 largest metro areas.

Rent-to-income ratio: Rental data are studio, 1-bedroom, or 2-bedroom units advertised as for-rent on Realtor.com between April 2023 and March 2024 in the top 50 metros. Rental units include apartments as well as private rentals (condos, townhomes, single-family homes). Household income was sourced from  2024 Claritas estimates based on Census Bureau data.

Rental vacancy rates were the 2023 average vacancy rates calculated from the Census’ Housing Vacancies and Homeownership Survey for each city/place’s surrounding metro area.

Recent college graduate-friendly occupations were those defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics , requiring a bachelor’s degree but no prior experience. The share of these occupations were then calculated using 2022 ACS 1-Year individual data for each city/place’s surrounding metro area. The stated forecasted unemployment rates are Moody’s Analytics projections of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics for each city/place’s surrounding metro area.

The metro-level online job posting index was sourced from Indeed’s Hiring Lab , and we took the average index between April 2023 and March 2024.   

The share of recent college graduates was estimated using 2022 ACS 1-Year individual data. Recent college graduates were individuals who were between 25 and 29 years old, earned a bachelor’s degree, and were not in school.

The average commute time data was sourced from 2024 Claritas estimates based on Census Bureau data.

Counts of culture and lifestyle businesses were aggregated from Yelp’s November 2023 point of interest data and are aggregated at the city/place level. The counts were then normalized using 2023 Claritas city/place-level household data.

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