The Production of PhDs in the United States and Canada

SERIES

PAPER

DISCUSSION

IZA DP No. 5367

The Production of PhDs in the

United States and Canada

Barry R. Chiswick

Nicholas Larsen

Paul Pieper

December 2010

Forschungsinstitut

zur Zukunft der Arbeit

Institute for the Study

of Labor

The Production of PhDs in the

United States and Canada

Barry R. Chiswick

University of Illinois at Chicago

and IZA

Nicholas Larsen

University of Illinois at Chicago

Paul Pieper

University of Illinois at Chicago

Discussion Paper No. 5367

December 2010

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IZA Discussion Paper No. 5367

December 2010

ABSTRACT

The Production of PhDs in the United States and Canada

This paper is concerned with the production of PhDs in the United States and Canada in the

post-WW II period, overall and by gender and major discipline. The effects of the explanatory

variables lagged six years are consistent with the model. Military conscription with

educational exemptions and the Vietnam War increased male PhD production in the U.S., but

have no effect for U.S. females or in Canada. Government expenditures on research and

development enhanced PhD production, especially for males and in the physical sciences in

the U.S. A higher rate of growth of non-farm productivity encouraged PhD production in the

U.S., but not in Canada. The cyclical indicator, the adult male unemployment rate, has a

weak positive effect for males in both the U.S. and Canada, suggesting that the negative

effect of the opportunity cost of time was stronger than the positive wealth effect. Other

variables the same, there has been an increase over time in PhD production for females, but

there is no such trend for males. The result has been an increase over time in PhD

production for both males and females, but the faster increase for females has narrowed the

gender gap.

JEL Classification:

Keywords:

I21, J24

PhD, educational attainment, conscription, Korean War, Vietnam War,

research funding

Corresponding author:

Barry R. Chiswick

Department of Economics

University of Illinois at Chicago

601 S. Morgan Street

Chicago, IL 60607-7121

USA

E-mail: brchis@uic.edu

I. Introduction

From Colonial times to the present, it has been recognized that high-skilled workers are

essential inputs in the economic growth of this country. The definition of high-skilled has

changed over time from the skilled artisans of the colonial period to the highly-educated

STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workers of today. The most

highly skilled of these workers typically complete their formal schooling with a PhD degree.

Yet, there has been remarkably little research on the determinants of the production of PhDs

in the United States in the post-World War II period.

There has been a substantial growth in the number of PhDs awarded in the US over the

past century, particularly after WWII, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1:

Average Number of PhDs Awarded Annually in the United States,

by Decade, 1910©\1919 to the present

Decade

PhDs

Decade

PhDs

1910©\1919

546

1960©\1969

16,284

1920©\1929

1,081

1970©\1979

32,094

1930©\1939

2,697

1980©\1989

31,948

1940©\1949

3,349

1990©\1999

40,377

1950©\1959

8,376

2000©\2006

41,998

Sources:

?

?

U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to

1970 House document-93rd Congress, 1st session; no 93-78. Bureau of the Census Series H

751-765 Institutions of Higher Education-Degrees Conferred, by Sex: 1870 to 1970 for the

years 1950-1966

NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates/Doctorate Records File for years 1966-2006 (Web address:

).

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This paper is one of the first systematic analyses of the changes over time in the post-war

period in the number of PhDs awarded annually in the United States and Canada. The analyses

are performed separately by country, overall and separately by gender and major academic

discipline (Physical or Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Education).1

Section II is a review of the literature on the awarding of PhD degrees. The model is

developed in Section III. The sources of the data for the US and Canada (PhDs awarded and the

explanatory variables) are reported in Section IV. The empirical analyses, first for the US and

then for Canada, are reported in Section V. While the Summary and Conclusions are presented in

Section VI.

II. Literature Review

The annual numbers of PhD recipients in the United States increased at a rapid rate from

1950 to 1966 with a downswing during the 1970s, followed by a gradual increase from 1980 to

2005 (Figure 1). Since the 1980s around 50 percent of the growth of PhD production in the

United States is attributed to temporary residents (foreign students) earning PhDs, primarily in

the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering (Stephan, Black, Adams & Levin 2002).

Similar trends are seen for PhD recipients in Canada (Figure 1). The data also show that initially

most PhDs awarded in the United States were earned by men born in the United States, but over

time this changed as the percentage of both the foreign born and women PhD recipients rose. The

literature that looks at the trends in PhD production in the United States generally focuses only

on changes to one of the following factors: change in attrition rates and time-to-degree by

gender and field of study, rising NSF funding, draft avoidance, the GI Bills for veterans, or

1

For the purpose of this project Mathematics is included in the Physical Sciences and Psychology is included in the

Social Sciences.

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