Trends in philosophy jobs by AOS (2013-18)

In past years, I reported the distribution of academic jobs in philosophy by AOS. This year, the Aero Data Lab has done one better, providing a detailed report of jobs by AOS from 2013-2018. The graph they provide is very striking, and here are some of the main takeaways:

The most striking result here is probably the “ethic” category, which consistently sees 50+ opportunities both for tenure track and fixed term positions. “Politic” and “science” are also looking relatively strong, with 20-30 opportunities each year. So for new graduate students in search of a project that is likely to increase their job market desirability, working on the ethical, social, or political implications of science would seem like a safe bet.

In terms of trends over time, most of the AOS’s fluctuate between 5-15 jobs/year. There appears to be a slight downward trend for “ancient” and “mind,” and a recent uptick of interest in “race”. However, the lack of big changes over time is also interesting, and worth thinking about for new graduate students as they develop and shape their projects. For example, in the past 6 years, there have only ever been a handful of opportunities in math, medieval, and aesthetics—even for fixed term positions. So if your main area of interest is more niche, it may be prudent to think about building a connection to a higher demand AOS in order to increase your future academic job opportunities.

Comments

[anonymous]

This is really helpful. I'm surprised to see certain categories omitted. (I feel like I've seen at least as many job ads in continental than in either "Kant" or "aesthetics", for example.) But this is not to complain--we should be compiling this data, it is really important for graduate students to have.

[Spencer Hey]

Thanks for spreading the word about this analysis! And for the kind words. In response to the first anonymous commenter, I've also now added "continental" to the list of area terms and updated the figure.

[Craig]

Great work Spencer!