Beyond the leaky pipeline: a quantitative analysis of the academic job market in humanities and social sciences

Purpose The structural diversity of faculty in higher education remains limited, particularly considering race and gender. Examinations of faculty hiring processes often engage deficit-based explanations rooted in the “pipeline” of potential candidates who have historically minoritized identities. Despite the presence of anecdotal beliefs about the job market for doctoral students and early career researchers, empirical evidence about their experiences, qualifications and successes remains absent from existing literature; this study aims to explore this gap. Design/methodology/approach The quantitative data for this exploratory analysis come from the 2019–2020 administration of the Job Search Collaborative Applicant Survey. The sample includes over 300 doctoral students and early-career researchers seeking faculty positions in humanities or social sciences in the USA. The authors provide descriptive data and results from regression analysis. Findings The results of the study provide data that informs realities of candidates’ experiences on the faculty job market in humanities and social sciences during 2020. No significant differences emerged based on race or gender across multiple productivity metrics (e.g. publications, citations). Despite this, other social identities (age, disability and first-generation status) did have significant relationships with outcomes and experiences in the faculty job market. Originality/value The continual focus on increasing candidate productivity through an emphasis on normative academic metrics (e.g. publications, citations) is not the only important consideration within the faculty job search process and may not directly yield success for doctoral students and early-career researchers in humanities and social sciences.