27, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 58-77 To the Editor Search

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The MLA's 1993–94 survey of jobs held by recent graduates of modern language doctoral programs is the ninth in a series begun in 1977. The following pages summarize the findings of the latest survey and, where possible, compare them with the results of earlier surveys. Since foreign languages are often considered collectively in the main text, an appendix details the employment status of graduates of degree programs in a range of languages and language groups.

In fall 1994 the MLA's research programs office sent questionnaires to 505 doctorate-granting departments in the modern languages inquiring into the number and current employment status of students who received PhDs or DAs between 1 September 1993 and 31 August 1994. Instead of gathering summary information on the graduates of specific degree programs, as past surveys had, the most recent survey asked departments to report several characteristics of individual graduates (e.g., field of study, employment status, sex, racial and ethnic group). The new approach made it easier for departments to supply the information, allowed the collection of additional information (e.g., year in which graduate study was begun), and simplified aspects of the data analysis process.

Follow-up telephone calls in late 1994 and early 1995 drew responses from most of the departments that did not respond to the survey mailing. ¹ Of the 270 foreign language departments approached, 98% provided the information sought, as did 98% of the 40 comparative literature departments, 96% of the 51 linguistics departments, and 94% of the 143 English departments. The overall response rate of 97% indicates that, for all practical purposes, the survey, like earlier studies, represents a census of the PhD degrees granted by all modern language doctoral departments during the academic year under study. Moreover, the 16 modern language departments not responding to the survey are similar to the responding departments in the institutional characteristics on which information was available (i.e., source of funding, institutional type, and institutional size). Thus, there is no reason to think absence biases the findings.

Table 1 summarizes several institutional characteristics of the departments responding to the 1993–94 placement survey. ² The top tows of the table indicate that just over 60% of the doctorate-granting foreign language departments are in the northeastern or midwestern states, while 14% are in the south Atlantic states and 17% are in the Pacific Coast states. In addition, just under three-fifths are in public institutions, just over three-quarters are in Research I universities, and seven-tenths are in institutions enrolling more than 15,000 full- and part-time students in fall 1988. ³ Foreign language departments are more likely than English departments to be in Research I universities, somewhat more likely to be in very large institutions, and somewhat less likely to be in the southern states (18% vs. 31%). They are also somewhat more likely than the three other types of departments to be in private institutions.

Of the doctorate-granting departments responding to the 1993–94 survey, 13% did not grant any PhDs or DAs during 1993–94. This percentage varies by type of language department, as the following figures indicate.

Foreign language and linguistics departments are less likely than English and comparative literature departments to have granted one or more PhDs during 1993–94. Foreign language departments in Research I institutions are more likely than those in other doctorate-granting institutions to have granted degrees (86% vs. 70%).

PhDs Granted

Figures compiled by the National Research Council (NRC) provide the best information available on PhDs granted annually. Using NRC numbers, figures 1 and 2 present, from top to bottom, the number of PhDs granted in English, foreign languages, linguistics, and comparative literature from 1969–70 through 1993–94, the latest year for which data are available. ⁴ Figure 1 shows the total number of degrees granted annually in each broad language field, while figure 2 shows the number granted per 100 degrees awarded in all fields. The similarity of the two figures indicates that increases and decreases through time in the number of degrees granted are field-specific and not merely consequences of more general changes in the number of PhDs granted in all fields.

The two figures indicate that the number of degrees granted in English and foreign languages increased during the early 1970s, continuing a trend begun in the late 1950s. After 1973–74, the number of degrees granted in both fields declined sharply until 1979–80 in foreign languages and until 1981–82 in English. Thereafter, the number declined far more slowly until 1987–88, when it began to increase again. Between 1987–88 and 1993–94 the number of degrees granted annually in foreign languages increased by 40%, while the number granted in English increased by 32%. The number of degrees granted in linguistic and comparative literature has remained fairly stable through time, though both fields show noticeable increases between 1990 and 1992 (59% in linguistics and 68% in comparative literature). In the light of the current contraction of the academic job market, the recent increase in the number of modern language degrees granted is a mixed blessing.

The MLA's most recent placement survey was designed to cover all students receiving their PhDs during 1993–94. Figure 3 indicates, however, that the MLA's count of PhDs granted in foreign languages has generally been higher than the NRCs count, even though a few departments do not participate in the MLA surveys. This discrepancy suggests that the MLA placement surveys usually include more than one academic year's PhDs, presumably because the date on which degrees were awarded is sometimes difficult to ascertain.

In addition to overcounting the number of degrees granted, the placement data discussed here may suffer from a second shortcoming, which arises from uncertainty about the year in which the new PhDs included in the 1993–94 surveys were looking for jobs. If one assumes that these students were in the job market during 1993–94, the survey findings tell us something about the job market in that year. But some graduate students get jobs the academic year before they receive their degrees, and thus the experience of students in that situation is included in the 1993–94 survey data but was acquired during 1992–93. Although such students are likely to be in the minority, their presence, along with that of new PhDs receiving their degrees before or after the survey's target year, suggests that the survey findings apply not only to the narrow 1993–94 period but also to the broader 1992–94 period. Since these years were all marked by declining opportunities in academia, the broader time span encompassed should not be a problem.

The first column of table 2 shows the number of PhDs granted by each type of language department, while the next three columns present averages for each group. ⁵ The data indicate that the largest number of degrees was awarded in English, with fewer granted in foreign languages and fewer still in linguistics and comparative literature. The averages tell a similar story: foreign language departments granted the smallest number of degrees, on average; English departments granted the largest number; and linguistics and comparative literature fall somewhere in between. The differences probably arise because doctorate-granting departments in English tend to be much larger than those in other modern languages (Huber 16–18).

Two-thirds of the foreign language departments awarding degrees during the 1993–94 academic year granted 3 or fewer: 26% granted 1 degree, 22% granted 2 degrees, and 19% granted 3 degrees. Another 27% granted between 4 and 7 degrees. Only 6% granted more than 7, and very few granted more than 12. Table 3 details the total and average number of PhDs granted by different types of degree programs and specifies the eight larger groupings, or clusters, used in subsequent discussion. Not surprisingly, the right-hand column of table 3 indicates that the largest number of degree programs—60% of the total—were in the three commonly taught modern language groupings listed first in the table. These programs also granted the largest number of degrees (65% of the total). The average number of degrees granted was greatest among programs in Spanish and Portuguese. The average number in the seven other groupings ranges from 2.1 in Near Eastern languages to 2.6 in French and Italian; the Spanish and Portuguese average is 3.6.

PhDs Granted to Women and Minorities

Table 4 shows the percentage of degrees granted by major types of language programs to men, women, and members of major racial and ethnic groups. At least some data by sex have been gathered since the MLA's first placement survey in 1976–77; data by racial and ethnic group, in contrast, were gathered for the first time in 1991–92. ⁶ Unfortunately, in collecting these data we failed to identify a distinct response category for nonresident degree recipients who returned to their countries of origin in completing their degrees. Thus the data were not as useful as they might have been. We corrected this flaw in the 1993–94 survey by asking departments to specify whether degree recipients were temporary residents who had returned to their country of origin. In addition, a change in questionnaire format allowed us to gather information on the employment status of minority degree recipients.

Women received the majority of degrees in all four groups included in table 4, as did whites. Linguistics and comparative literature programs are slightly less likely to grant degrees to women than English or foreign language degree programs, while English programs are less likely than linguistics and foreign language programs to grant degrees to minorities. In foreign languages, 17% of the degrees granted in 1993–94 went to Hispanics, while in linguistics 18% went to Asians; the percentage of comparative literature degrees going to Asians is also relatively high. Degree recipients who have returned to their countries of origin have been eliminated from the figures for major racial and ethnic groups, since minority PhDs are disproportionately likely to come from abroad. Of the modern language doctoral degree recipients who are minorities, 34% are foreigners who have returned to their countries of origin; for whites, the equivalent figure is 6%. A similar pattern is evident among the 1993–94 degree recipients in foreign languages: 27% of the minority degree recipients are foreigners who have returned to their country of origin compared with 10% of the white degree recipients. The percentage of doctorate recipients who have returned to their home countries is somewhat higher in foreign languages than in English (15% vs. 5.6%); fully one-third of the degree recipients in linguistics in 1993–94 returned to their countries of origin. Of the PhDs in foreign languages who have returned to their home countries, 45% are Asians, 23% are Hispanics, 6% are blacks, and 10% are whites.

Figure 4 shows the number of foreign language degrees granted to men and women through time. The number of degrees granted to women has consistently outstripped the number granted to men, but the disproportion has been considerably greater during the 1990s than it was during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the numbers for men and for women rose and fell in tandem. Since 1981–82, however, the number of degrees granted to women has grown noticeably, while the number granted to men has remained relatively unchanged. The number of degrees granted to women in 1993–94 is 41% larger than the number granted in 1981–82, while the number granted to men, despite being the largest since 1980, is only 8% greater. Figure 5 shows the number of foreign language degrees granted to members of various racial and ethnic groups in 1991–92 and 1993–94. The figures are not entirely comparable, because foreigners were differently defined in the two surveys. Although the number of foreign language doctorates granted to minorities is marginally higher in 1993–94 than it was in 1991–92 (151 vs. 148 degrees), the percentage is slightly smaller (25.4% vs. 26.2%). This decline in representation may be more apparent than real, however, since the 1991–92 figures include more minorities who are foreigners than the 1993–94 figures do.

Table 5 shows the percentage of men and women receiving doctorates in the eight major degree program clusters, while table 7 shows the percentage of new PhDs in each grouping that belong to various racial and ethnic groups. In the first two program clusters listed in table 5, close to two-thirds of the degrees granted went to women, while in Near Eastern languages, classics, and Germanic languages half or more of the degrees granted went to men. Table 6 shows the percentage of degree recipients in each program grouping that returned to their countries of origin on receipt of their degrees. This percentage is higher for degree recipients in Near Eastern and Asian languages than it is for new PhDs in the other language groupings (27% and 29% vs. 14%). According to table 7, whites received the vast majority of degrees in all but two language groupings: Spanish and Portuguese and Asian languages. Not surprisingly, close to half the degrees granted in Spanish and Portuguese in 1993–94 went to Hispanics, while somewhat over half the degrees granted in Asian languages went to Asians. In fact, of the foreign language degrees received by Hispanics in 1993–94, 87% were in Spanish and Portuguese, while 59% of the foreign language degrees received by Asians were in Asian languages. The percentage of degrees earned by minorities differs by source of funding as well as by degree program. Foreign language PhDs receiving their degrees from public institutions in 1993–94 are more likely than those receiving them from private institutions to be minorities (31% vs. 17%).

Time to Degree

Changes in the format of the 1993–94 placement survey questionnaire permitted the MLA to gather, for the first time, information on an important facet of graduate study: the number of years graduates take to complete their PhDs. We elicited information on time to degree, as it is commonly called, by asking departments to indicate the “year in which [each] PhD recipient began graduate work (at your institution or elsewhere).” Even though such information is not always readily available, it was provided for all but 102 (5%) of the 1993–94 PhD recipients. The nonresponse rate for foreign languages—6%—is largely equivalent to that for all modern language degree recipients. But not all responses seemed valid; those degree recipients said to have obtained their doctorates in less than 4 years were eliminated from consideration. ⁷ As a result, the nonresponse rate in foreign languages increased to 8%; it is somewhat lower for all degree recipients (7%).

On average, 1993–94 degree recipients in foreign languages began their graduate work in 1987: half began their studies between 1984 and 1988. Sixteen percent began graduate study in 1989 and 10% began before 1982. In other words, half took 6 to 10 years to complete their graduate work, with an average time to degree of 7 years. Sixteen percent completed their studies in 4 or 5 years, and 10% took more than 12 years.

The number of years 1993–94 foreign language PhD recipients took complete their graduate studies does not vary by gender, race or ethnicity, or by most characteristics of degree-granting institutions. On average, degree recipients from Research I institutions took somewhat longer to complete their degrees than those from other doctorate-granting institutions did (8 years vs. 7 years). In part, this difference arises because new PhDs from Research I institutions are more likely to have received their degrees in the less commonly taught languages (i.e., Slavic, Near Eastern, and Asian languages) than are new PhDs from other doctorate-granting institutions (20% vs. 12%); on average, graduate studies in these languages take somewhat longer to complete than graduate studies in the three most commonly taught languages (8 years vs. 7 years for the 1993–94 degree recipients). (The difference is most striking for degree recipients in the Asian languages, all of whom received their PhDs from Research I institutions.)

On average, English and foreign language degree recipients took the same number of years to complete their degrees, as the bottom rows of table 8 indicate. The table suggests that both took slightly longer to complete their PhDs than degree recipients in linguistics did and somewhat less time than degree recipients in comparative literature. The median time-to-degree figures in table 8 are smaller than those calculated by the National Research Council (55); the NRC figures for 1993–94 are as follows:

Much of the difference emerges because the NRC measures the time elapsed between receipt of the baccalaureate and doctoral degrees rather than the duration of graduate study, which may not commence until several years after receipt of the BA. ⁸

Placement of 1993–94 PhDs

Table 9 shows the percentage of PhD recipients in each of the four broad language fields who found jobs in major employment sectors. Percentages are presented for separate job categories and for three major clusters: employment in postsecondary institutions, employment in other sectors, and unemployment. Foreign degree recipients who have returned to their countries of origin are not included in table 9–11, because they are not competing for jobs in this country. They are included in tables 12 and 13 and figures 6–13, however, to preserve comparability through time. Eliminating them reduces somewhat the percentage of new PhDs whose employment status is unknown (by 0.8%). ⁹

The base used in calculating the percentages in the central sections of tables 9–13 excludes new PhDs whose employment status is unknown. The two percentages at the bottom of the tables, in contrast, are based on the total number of PhDs granted. These percentages can be misleading because they rest on the improbable assumption that none of the new PhDs in the unknown-status group have full-time teaching or tenure-track positions. ¹⁰ Such an assumption does not appear justified, which is why the unknown-status group was excluded from the base used in the main body of the table. This procedure is not perfect either, however, since it assumes that those whose employment status is unknown are like those whose employment status is known. While this supposition is also unlikely—members of the former group, for example, are more likely to be unemployed—it is more tenable than the premise that none of those whose employments status is unknown are employed. Consequently, subsequent discussion deals only with new PhDs whose employment status in known.

Table 9 indicates that two-thirds or more of the 1993–94 PhDs in each of the four broad language groups found jobs in postsecondary institutions. Of those with degrees from foreign language programs, just over two-fifths obtained tenure-track positions and two-thirds found full-time teaching positions. In addition, 10% are unemployed and 12% are employed outside the academy, primarily in secondary education. ¹¹ The employment patterns prevailing among the foreign language PhDs are not very different from the patterns for the three other fields, though the foreign language PhDs are a bit less likely than those in English to have part-time teaching positions and a bit more likely than all other degree recipients to have full-time non-tenure-track positions (25% vs. 20%).

Table 10 shows the employment status of the 1993–94 PhDs who received their degrees from each of the eight degree program clusters. The status of degree recipients in two clusters—Spanish and Portuguese and Asian languages—clearly differs from that of degree recipients in other clusters. Table 11 highlights the differences. The clearest difference is in tenure-track positions: new PhDs in Spanish and Portuguese languages and in Asian languages are almost twice as likely to have obtained such positions as new PhDs in other languages are, and they are less than half as likely to be unemployed. Three language groupings had unemployment rates of at least 15%: Germanic languages, classics, and Near Eastern languages. New PhDs in Spanish and Portuguese differ from those in Asian languages, as well as from those in other languages, in a number of respects: they are more likely to have full-time teaching appointments, less likely to have part-time positions, and less likely to be employed outside the academy. These findings indicate that the ability of the 1993–94 PhDs to find academic positions varied considerably by the languages in which they specialized. ¹²

Changes through Time

Table 12 summarizes the findings of the nine MLA placement surveys in foreign languages since 1976–77. It indicates that the percentage of new PhDs obtaining tenure-track positions in 1993–94 is lower than it was in 1991–92 and 1986–87 (43% vs. 49% and 50%), periods when the market was more favorable to job seekers. The percentage of 1993–94 PhDs with part-time positions is higher than in 1986–87, while the percentage unemployed is higher than in both earlier surveys (10% vs. 7% and 3%). The 1993–94 figures are most comparable to those for the survey focusing on 1977–78, when the percentage of foreign language PhDs obtaining tenure-track positions was 43%, the percentage with part-time appointments was 8.5%, and the percentage unemployed was 10%. In the earlier survey the percentage employed outside the academy was somewhat higher and the percentage with full-time non-tenure-track positions was somewhat lower (18% vs. 24% in 1993–95).

Table 12 reveals somewhat different shifts in employment patterns for the two periods of contraction in the academic job market. The first period, from 1977 to 1984, marks the end of a longer period of decline that began in the early 1970s. Figure 6 reveals that it was characterized by clear-cut growth in the percentage of new PhDs with non-tenure-track positions (20% to 25%) and fluctuation in the percentage obtaining tenure-track positions. The period also saw a steady decline in the percentage unemployed (from 10% to 6%) and, after 1979, in the percentage employed outside the academy (from 20% to 16%). It appears, therefore, that the unemployment rate among new PhDs decreased in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of increased reliance on non-tenure-track hiring.

During the mid-1980s, the academic job market improved considerably, giving rise to a spurt of hiring in the modern languages. As a result, the 1986–87 survey, undertaken two years before the height of the expansion, showed more foreign language PhDs in tenure-track positions and fewer employed outside the academy or unemployed than the 1983–84 survey did. Reliance on non-tenure-track hiring, however, remained as high in 1986–87 as in 1983–84. At the end of the 1980s, in response to the nationwide recession, the academic job market began to contract again. Whether 1993–94 marks the end or the middle of this second period of contraction is difficult to know at this time. What is clearer is that changes in patterns of employment during the 1989–94 period differ from the changes evident during the 1977–84 period. During the recent period of contraction, as figure 7 indicates, the percentage of new PhDs obtaining tenure-track positions declined (from 50% to 43%), and reliance on non-tenure-track hiring continued. These changes have been accompanied by an increase in the percentage of new PhDs in part-time positions (from 5% to 8%) and unemployed (from 3% to 10%). The increase in unemployment contrasts with the pattern in the earlier period of contraction, in part, perhaps, because the reliance on non-tenure-track hiring was already so high in the late 1980s that it could not grow further. In addition, the percentage of new PhDs finding employment outside the academy has remained lower during the 1986–94 period than it was during the 1977–84 period (11%–13% vs. 16%–20%).

Differences by Sex

Table 13 shows differences in the employment status of male and female foreign language degree recipients in selected years: 1993–94, the year of the most recent survey, 1991–92, the year of the first survey of the 1990s; 1983–84, the year of the mid-decade survey for the 1980s; and 1979–80, the year when data on differences by sex were first collected. Although more women than men received foreign language PhDs throughout the 1980s, women's employment prospects were not equivalent to men's until the 1990s. The 1979–80 and 1983–84 surveys showed men more likely than women to have full-time teaching appointments, especially tenure-track positions, and less likely to have part-time appointments or be unemployed.

The two surveys done in the 1990s, in contrast, show women somewhat more likely than men to have tenure-track appointments and somewhat less likely to have full-time non-tenure-track positions. These differences are minor, however, and not statistically significant. ¹³ Although women and men were equally likely to be unemployed in 1993–94, women were more likely to be searching in a specific geographic area, a discrepancy also evident in the 1983–84 and 1979–80 surveys. Unemployed women tend to be less mobile than unemployed men and therefore more likely to seek jobs in a specific geographic area. This continuing constraint on unemployed women should not obscure the major conclusion emerging from the data presented in table 13: during the 1990s, the employment prospects of men and women with newly minted PhDs in foreign languages have been roughly equivalent.

Differences by Language

Figures 8–13 summarize changes through time in the employment status of new PhDs obtaining degrees in six different language clusters. Some employment patterns within each clusters are distinctive. The percentage of new PhDs in Spanish and Portuguese who obtained tenure-track positions declined modesty during the late 1970s but has shown considerable growth since then, as figure 8 indicates. In response, the percentage unemployed declined steadily, as did the percentage in non-tenure-track positions. The percentage of new PhDs in both categories increased somewhat in 1993–94, presumably in response to a drop in the percentage obtaining tenure-track positions. The pattern in French and Italian is much like that in Spanish and Portuguese: the percentage of new PhDs obtaining tenure-track positions grew considerably during the 1980s, while the percentage unemployed tended to decline. Figure 9 shows that the percentage of new PhDs in French and Italian employed outside the academy also declined fairly steadily during the 1980s. That percentage, along with the percentage unemployed, grew noticeably between 1991–92 and 1993–94, presumably because of the decline in tenure-track hiring.

In contrast, growth in tenure-track hiring was limited in the Germanic languages during the period under consideration; figure 10 suggests that such hiring expanded during the late 1980s only. ¹⁴ Before and after this brief expansionary period, contraction in tenure-track hiring was the norm for Germanic languages, and the two periods of contraction exhibited different patterns of employment among new PhDs. The first period, 1977–84, saw expansion in the percentage of new PhDs obtaining non-tenure-track and part-time academic positions, along with expansion in the percentage finding employment outside the academy. The second period of contraction in tenure-track hiring, 1987–94, was accompanied by a decline in the percentage of new PhDs in non-tenure-track positions and no real growth in the percentage employed in part-time positions or outside the academy. As a result, the unemployment rate in Germanic languages increased considerably during the recent period of contraction, while it declined during the earlier period. The increase in unemployment was particularly pronounced between 1991–92 and 1993–94 because the percentage of PhDs in Germanic languages finding any type of academic employment declined noticeably (from 76% to 63%). ¹⁵

The percentage presented in figures 11–13 must be treated with some caution, because the number of PhD recipients in the less commonly taught languages is relatively small. During the years under consideration, it ranges from 26 to 59 for Asian languages, from 27 to 52 for Slavic languages, and from 20 to 36 for Near Eastern languages. The resulting reliance on small numbers means that percentages can fluctuate considerably from year to year, making trends through time more difficult to identify. This difficulty is evident in figure 11, which shows the employment status through time of new PhDs in Slavic languages. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the percentage of new PhDs finding tenure-track positions tended to increase, while the percentage in part-time positions and unemployed tended to decline. After the mid-1980s this trend reversed itself: the percentage with tenure-track positions tended to decline, while the percentage in the other two categories tended to increase. In contrast to this fluctuation, the percentage of new PhDs in non-tenure-track positions increased fairly steadily throughout the period under consideration.

The percentage of new PhDs obtaining tenure-track positions peaked earlier in Near Eastern than in Slavic languages. Figure 12 indicates that the percentage has decreased relatively steadily since 1979–80. This fairly dramatic decline has been accompanied by a steady increase in the percentage of new PhDs with non-tenure-track positions and widespread employment outside the academy; the percentage of PhDs employed in other sectors ranged from 19% to 25% during the 1979–94 period. These trends have proved insufficient to compensate for the decline in tenure-track hiring; as a result, unemployment among new PhDs in Near Eastern languages has been on the rise since the early 1980s. In some respects, employment patterns in the Asian languages are the opposite of those in the Near Eastern languages. Instead of peaking around 1980, the percentage of new PhDs in Asian languages obtaining tenure-track positions was at its low point in 1979–80. Thereafter, as figure 13 shows, the percentage grew considerably during the 1980s and early 1990s. This growth was accompanied by a fairly steady decline in the percentage of new PhDs in non-tenure-track positions and employed outside the academy. These declines may help account for the fluctuation in the unemployment rate; it ranged from 3% to 14% during the 1974–94 period.

Preceding discussion of employment patterns in various language clusters suggests that the job market for new PhDs in Spanish and Portuguese and in Asian languages has been relatively strong since the early 1980s, as has, until recently, the job market for new PhDs in French and Italian. New PhDs in Germanic, Slavic, and Near Eastern languages faced a much more difficult job market, especially during the 1980s. Discussion has also suggested that employment patterns among new PhDs in foreign languages are dependent on trends in tenure-track hiring. When such hiring has risen, the percentage of new PhDs finding other types of positions has generally declined; when tenure-track hiring has declined, the percentage of new PhDs obtaining other types of positions has increased. When too few such positions have been available, the unemployment rate has grown. These findings suggest that the ready availability of some types of jobs—in particular non-tenure-track teaching positions and positions outside the academy—has served as a cushion against unemployment when tenure-track positions for new PhDs foreign languages were in short supply.

The author is Director of Research for the Modern Language Association .

Appendix

1993–94 Placement Figures for Individual Degree Programs

Table A-1 on pages 76–77 contains the 1993–94 placement figures for degree programs in major languages or language groups, as well as for linguistics and comparative literature. The top section of the table shows the number of programs granting degrees, the number of degrees granted to men and women, and the percentage of women among the degree recipients. The main body of the table presents three numbers for each type of degree program and employment category or subcategory: the total number of new PhDs in that grouping, followed by the number of men and the number of women (in italic). The sum of the male and female figures does not equal the total in each category or subcategory, since employment status but not gender was reported for some of the new PhDs. With one exception, this means that the total will be larger than the sum of the male and female figures. The exception is new PhDs whose employment status is unknown. Here the total may be smaller than the sum of the figures for men and for women.

The bottom rows of the table present several percentages. The base for the first four percentages, which may be more reliable than the last two, is the number of new PhDs whose employment status was reported. The final two percentages indicate the percentage of all new PhDs with tenure-track or full-time teaching positions; here the base used includes new PhDs whose employment status is known and those whose status is unknown.

Notes

¹ Special thanks are due to Natalia Lusin for her able assistance in calling departments that were slow to return their survey questionnaires and in coding the returned questionnaires. Thanks are also due to David Goldberg for his good work on the follow-up calls and to Jeffrey Siegel for his assistance with the coding and analysis of the placement data.

² The figures presented in table 1 and elsewhere may not sum to 100% because of rounding. In addition, the number of departments, degree programs, and degree recipients may vary from table to table because respondents for whom no information was available on specific items were eliminated from consideration.

³ Research I university is a designation developed by the Carnegie Foundations. Such universities differ from other doctorate-granting institutions by the number of doctorates they grant annually and the amount of federal support for research and development they receive. For the purposes of the Carnegie Foundation's 1987 classification of institutions, Research I universities awarded at least 50 PhDs in 1983–84 and received at least $33.5 million in federal support in 1983, 1984, and 1985 (“Carnegie”).

⁴ Because no earlier figures are available, figures 1 and 2 include PhD statistics for comparative literature from 1976 onward only. Further, to conform to the definition of foreign languages used in the placement surveys, the NRC figures for modern foreign languages have been adjusted to include PhDs granted in classics. The PhD figures are compiled by the NRC's Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel and are published in annual reports entitled Summary Report 19xx: Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities (Washington: Natl. Acad.).

⁵ The interquartile range describes the largest and smallest number of PhDs granted by the half of the responding departments located around the midpoint of the distribution of number of PhDs granted.

⁶ Data on employment status were not collected separately for men and women until the 1979–80 survey.

⁷ We assumed that degree recipients completing their studies in less than four years had entered graduate programs with MAs. Therefore, their time-to-degree figures did not include their entire period of graduate study and thus were inaccurate.

⁸ The MLA figures underestimate time to degree somewhat, as we may not have eliminated all instances of departments providing the year in which the 1993–94 degree recipients entered their graduate programs rather than the year in which the degree recipients began graduate study (the two differ for students who transfer after completing their MAs).

⁹ In addition, the percentage of new PhDs with part-time positions increases by 0.6% and the percentage with positions outside the academy decreases by 0.7%.

¹⁰ Percentages based on all PhDs also make comparisons through time difficult because variation in the number of people whose employment status is unknown distorts the percentages for specific employment categories.

¹¹ The self-employed and other category is not as large as it appears it includes both degree recipients who are self-employed ( n = 11; 2.0%) and those who are employed in sectors other than those specified in the table ( n = 16; 2.8%).

¹² Employment status appears to differ by race and ethnicity; of the 1993–94 foreign language PhDs who are minorities, 55% obtained tenure-track positions, compared with 38% of whites. This difference is more apparent than real, however, because minorities are so heavily concentrated in the two language clusters in which 1993–94 PhDs fared best: Spanish and Portuguese and Asian languages. Minorities specializing in these languages are no more likely than whites to have obtained tenure-track positions (62% vs. 61%). The same applies to new PhDs with degrees in other language clusters: of the few minorities in this group, 35% have tenure-track positions, compared with 31% of the whites.

¹³ Additional sex differences are evident in the 1991–92 survey: women are more likely than men to have obtained part-time appointments and somewhat less likely to be employed outside the academy or be unemployed.

¹⁴ Between 1983–84 and 1986–87 the percentage of PhDs in Germanic languages obtaining tenure-track positions grew from 31% to 41%.

¹⁵ The inclusion of foreign PhDs who returned to their countries of origin inflates the 1993–94 unemployment rate for new PhDs in Germanic languages. If they are excluded from consideration, the rate drops from 20% to 17% (see table 10).

Works Cited

“Carnegie Foundation's Classification of More the 3,300 Institutions of Higher Education.” Chronicle of Higher Education 8 July 1987: 22–30.

Huber, Bettina J. “Recent and Anticipated Growth in Foreign Languages\Doctoral Programs: Findings from the MLA's 1990 Survey.” ADFL Bulletin 25.1 (1993): 13–35. [Show Article]

National Research Council. Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel. Summary Report 1994: Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities . Washington: Natl. Acad., 1995.