title: Stability and Longevity in the Publication Careers of U.S. Doctorate Recipients.
abstract: Since the 1950s, the number of doctorate recipients has risen dramatically in the United States. In this paper, we investigate whether the longevity of doctorate recipients' publication careers has changed. This is achieved by matching 1951-2010 doctorate recipients with rare names in astrophysics, chemistry, economics, genetics and psychology in the dissertation database ProQuest to their publications in the publication database Web of Science. Our study shows that pre-PhD publication careers have changed: the median year of first publication has shifted from after the PhD to several years before PhD in most of the studied fields. In contrast, post-PhD publication career spans have not changed much in most fields. The share of doctorate recipients who have published for more than twenty years has remained stable over time; the shares of doctorate recipients publishing for shorter periods also remained almost unchanged. Thus, though there have been changes in pre-PhD publication careers, post-PhD career spans remained quite stable.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Cathelijn J F
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Waaijer
authors.affiliation: Observatoire des sciences et des technologies, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Benoît
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Macaluso
authors.affiliation: School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
authors.forename: Cassidy R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Sugimoto
authors.affiliation: Observatoire des sciences et des technologies, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada.|École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Larivière
mesh_terms: D002322:Career Mobility; D004500:Education, Graduate / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D005178:Faculty / Q000193:education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D009790:Occupations; D011642:Publications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D014481:United States; D014495:Universities