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A moment's glance at the age breakdown table in the report summary available on-line makes it clear that the increase in older faculty has nothing to do with changes in age discrimination laws nor with removal of mandatory retirement. Specifically, the growth is concentrated in the 55-64 year old age group (up six percent) and not the 65 and older group (up one percent).

This reflects the peculiar demography of US faculty, which is counter-cyclical with US population generally: the big age cohort of US faculty were born in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and they are currently 55 to 64. These are the people who attended grad school at the beginning of the massive postwar expansion of American Universities during the 1960s and benefited from accelerated faculty hiring when University expansion went into high gear in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Even more than the baby boomers in the general population, this disproportionately large cohort drives trends in the demography of US faculty. As they age, the faculty in general ages; beyond a certain point (in five to ten more years) this cohort will retire in large numbers and the nation's faculty will suddenly become "younger".

It's no big mystery, but it is bad news for young scholars who expect expanding job markets in the next five years or so. This trend may be offset in part by early retirement incentives offered to aging faculty.

: -- Michel Reibel, Asst. Professor of Geography, Cal. State Polytechnic University - Pomona (posted 8/31, 12:38 p.m., E.D.T.)

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