Trends in the Research Productivity of Newly Hired Assistant Professors at Research Departments from 2007 to 2012

Has the sociology job market for assistant professors at research universities become more competitive in recent years? One approach to addressing this question is to consider the research productivity of new hires. This study reports on trends in research productivity and the proportion of hires that are ABDs from 2007 to 2012 using data collected from the CVs of 334 assistant professors employed at the top 98 sociology departments. The analysis reveals a substantial increase in the median number of publications, median number of peer-reviewed publications, and the median number of first- or sole-authored peer-reviewed publications over the past 6 years among newly hired professors. This is in part due to a decrease in the proportion of assistant professors hired out of graduate school (i.e., ABDs) and the fact that ABDs have fewer publications on average than non-ABDs. The article concludes with a consideration of the mechanisms that might underlie these trends and notes important limitations concerning selectivity that pertain to the analysis.