This study was facilitated by the financial support of the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, by the general assistance of Rona Wolfe and by the assistance and encouragement of Earl M. Baker of the APSA. The study was made possible by the cooperation of the respondents. The suggestions and constructive criticisms of my colleagues Donald J. Devine and Daniel Melnick on an earlier draft are greatly appreciated. Neither they nor those whose coding and machine-related help is acknowledged below are to be deemed guilty of any errors in calculation or interpretation, of course. A more detailed analysis is in progress; and follow-up studies are planned.

¹ Cf. Office of Scientific Personnel, National Research Council, “Employment Status of Recent Recipients of the Doctorate,” Science, Vol. 168, No. 3934 (May 22, 1970), p. 930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Admittedly, the market conditions seem to have changed suddenly. Thus, a publication lag of even a few months may have influenced such projections. In a volume published a few months ago, Merritt, Richard L. and Pyszka, Gloria observed that “the demand for teachers of political science exceeds the supply, and this picture is not likely to change in the forseeable future.” (The Student Political Scientist's Handbook [Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing Co., Inc., 1969], p. 169).Google Scholar

³ At least 18 of the 90B addressees are bureaus institutes and other bodies that do not formally employ political scientists, although they may utilize their services. These, therefore, have been eliminated from calculations of the base.

⁴ This represents a net response rate of 66.1%. The base is divided into the “A” and “B” lists for some purposes — in order to distinguish between Ph.D. granting departments (the “A” list) and all others (the “B” list). The “A” list response rate was markedly higher: 79.6% (74 of 94) of the departments had responded by June 8 (and several since – these will be incorporated in later analyses). The “B” list rate was 64.6% (514 of 796) as of June 8. On both lists but particularly the “B” list, larger departments showed a substantially higher rate of response than smaller departments. (It is estimated that approximately 80% of the departments that will be classified “medium” or “large” below responded, while only about 60% of the more numerous “small” departments returned completed questionnaires.) Thus, while the data in this report refer to only 66% of the departments, about 80% of the academic positions in the discipline are represented.

⁵ Both the APSA survey conducted by Earl M. Baker for the Committee on Program Planning and Review (in this issue of PS) and the BASS report ( Eulau, Heinz and March, James G. [eds.], Political Science [The Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969])Google Scholar gathered information from the “A” list schools. The U.S. Office of Education, in Projections of Educational Statistics to 1977–79 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969)Google Scholar, Tables 28–32, presents data in which Political Science is not distinguished. Similarly, the utilities of Cartter, Allan M. and Farrell, Robert L., “Academic Labor Market Projections and the Draft,” in Joint Economic Committee, The Economics and Financing of Higher Education in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1969), pp. 357–95Google Scholar, are limited by the absence of breakdowns of projected faculty positions by discipline. (The Cartter-Farrell projections reach to 1985–86.)

⁶ Eulau and March, pp. 72–73.

⁷ I strongly recommend that subsequent studies use the exact numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3 – and perhaps 4 and 5 as well for registering expected Increment responses. Judging by the written-in observations of a few (7) chairmen, it might be useful to Include a response category for decrease also.

Even if the mean growth fell at the median of each category, the total of new positions for the most numerous “small” category (N=463 for 1973, N=451 for 1980) is rather small: approximately 1,000 for 1973 and approximately 1,452 between 1970 and 1980. If the 1970–73 growth rate is proportional with the 1970–80 rate (as is reasonable to assume), then the 1970–73 total of new positions is approximately 440. Judging by information volunteered by respondents, a substantial number of small departments will add zero or 1 positions by 1973, rather than the median 1.5. Thus, the 1970–73 figure of 440 seems generally reasonable, and the 1980 figure is closer to 1,000 than to the median-based 1,452 for small (1–10) departments.

⁸ The authors of the BASS report wrote that “overall departmental forecasts are for a tripling of the number of doctorates from 1966 to 1977. Well-known departments … expect to double their Ph.D. output over that period; less well-known departments … expect to increase their output more than sixfold” (p. 115).

⁹ Note that the APSA survey reported in this issue of PS projects a downturn in both graduate admissions and Ph.D. entry into the market during the near future.

¹⁰ These gross approximations were derived by taking the means of the ranges of growth indicated on the questionnaires (adjusted for non-response), and displayed in Tables 4 and 5, below. These estimates will be refined (so far as the constraints of the data educed by the survey will permit) for the next report on this study – the report to be presented at the forthcoming (1970) APSA Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.

¹¹ See Eulau and March, pp. 70–71. As the APSA survey findings show, the number of new entrants into the market is greater than the number of Ph.D.s awarded in any given year. The BASS report, using the U.S. Office of Education's 1967–77 projections, showed 508 new Ph.D.s for 1970–71, and 554 for 1971–72, while the APSA survey educed figures of 1164 new entrants into the market for 1971 and 1059 by the end of the 1971–72 academic year. The BASS report showed a projected Ph.D. output of 855 for the last year of the estimates, 1976–77.

¹² Using information based on the institutional affiliation of individual members of the APSA for 1967, the BASS report's authors found that 75% of the membership was located in academic positions, with 12% in government.

¹³ No mark was coded as 0, a mark or ranking was coded as 1. For these and all other computations, the DATA-TEXT program was used on the University of Maryland Computer Science Center's IBM 7094. The coding assistance of Loughlin R. McHugh, Jr., and Rona Wolfe and the machine-related assistance of Mike McKinney. Virginia Lussier and Jonathan Wilkenfeld is gratefully acknowledged, as is the customary helpfulness of the Computer Science Center staff.