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

Examinations of faculty hiring processes often engage deficit-based explanations rooted in the “pipeline” of potential candidates with 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 limited. Using quantitative data from the 2019–2020 administration of the Job Search Collaborative Applicant Survey, this study examines over 300 doctoral students and early-career researchers seeking faculty positions in the humanities and social sciences in the USA. Results indicate that more than 75% of survey participants had some form of fellowship, and the vast majority had teaching experience beyond serving as a teaching assistant. These findings challenge simple pipeline explanations for limited diversity in faculty hiring and highlight structural factors that shape outcomes in humanities and social sciences fields.