Collaboration has become more important in recent decades. We show that large groups produce an unintended effect: people who complete their PhD when the average group in their field is large have worse job prospects. Our analysis combines occupational outcome data from the Doctoral Recipient Survey with publication data measuring cohort size from the ISI Web of Science. As the average cohort size in a field increases over time, younger academic scientists are less likely to receive research funding or tenure and more likely to leave academia compared to their older colleagues. The cohort size effect can fully account for the observed decline in tenure prospects in academic science. An increase in cohort size was not associated with an end to forced retirement. However, the doubling of the NIH budget was associated with a significant increase in cohort size. Our results show that educational science did not adjust its reward structure, which is individual, in response to group science. Failure to address this concern means a huge loss as young scientists drop out after expensive and specialized science education.
That’s according to a new NBER working paper on
Source link