A couple of months ago, I gave my annual informal report breaking down last job-season's tenure-track jobs by AOS. Because of a confluence of events--ranging from professional deadlines to family issues--I had to put a report on non-tenure-track jobs on the backburner for a while. However, I've now completed it and report my findings below.
Today's post is based upon a PhilJobs search for 'fixed term' and 'contract open' jobs for ads posted between August 1st, 2020 and April 21st (so that the data would cover roughly the same amount of time as in previous years). A few quick notes on methodology. The methodology I've always used in this series works as follows. When I encounter jobs with two AOS;s (e.g. metaphysics, moral philosophy), I counted each job as '.5' jobs in that area (or in the case of 3 AOS, '.33' jobs, etc.). Although I recognize this is a bit odd, it seems to me to make sense, as a job like that could go to someone in any of the listed AOSs, not just one particular AOS. Because I did this with all jobs, the numbers seem to me to accurately weight whether a job is in a particular AOS simpliciter, or whether it was also available to candidates in other AOS. Second, I only counted "junior-level" non-TT jobs (i.e. postdocs, lecturer, and Assistant Professor positions), not senior-level tenure-track jobs. Finally, one quick note before proceeding: although I've done my best to collect the data in this post accurately, this is just an informal report, not a formal study, so if there are any errors, I apologize in advance (though, if there are any, I'm fairly certain they would be very, very minor).
Here's a breakdown of what I found (and here is a copy of my spreadsheet):
TOTAL # of non-tenure-track jobs: 210
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- Value theory (ethics, political, etc.): 81.5 jobs (38.9% of all jobs)
- Ethics: 57 jobs (27.1% of all jobs)
- Legal, political, PPE: 24.5 jobs (11.7%)
- Open AOS: 56.6 jobs (27% of all jobs)
- Philosophy of Science: 26.3 jobs (12.5% of all jobs)
- 'Core' areas (Language, Logic, Mind, M&E): 17.9 jobs (8.5% of all jobs)
- Marginalized groups & non-Western philosophy: 15.5 jobs (7.4% of all jobs)
- Marginalized groups (race, gender, etc.): 11.3 jobs (5.4%)
- Non-Western philosophy: 4.2 jobs (2%)
- History of philosophy: 7.6 jobs (3.6% of all jobs)
- Aesthetics: 2.2 jobs (1%)
- Philosophy of Religion: 1.75 jobs (.8%)
- Continental Philosophy: 1 job (.4%)
- Value theory (ethics, political, etc.): 81.5 jobs (38.9% of all jobs)
One interesting thing here is that in comparison to tenure-track jobs, advertisements for which dropped by nearly half relative to 2019-20, ads for non-tenure-track jobs did not fall nearly as much (there were 244 non-TT jobs in 2019-20).
Thank you for posting this, Dr. Marvan. Whatever methods you use to compile these results, their variation conveys quite a bit of information when the methods are held constant, which you are best qualified to do.
I've hypothesized that the ratios of TT to non-TT jobs in each subfield are highly meaningful numbers that would be analogous to prices in a flexible market. Given the rigidity of salaries, they probably correlate more closely with numbers (however miniscule on average) of offers, or the quickness with which offers are made.
Posted by: Champollion Triarche | 06/18/2021 at 12:49 AM