Demographic Data on U.S. Philosophy Faculty


Trends show a slow decrease in the extent to which U.S. full-time philosophy faculty at four-year institutions is male and white, according to data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics by Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) and posted at The Splintered Mind:

Gender data:

1988: philosophy*: 91% male (vs. 75% for all fields).
1993: philosophy*: 88% male (vs. 70% for all fields).
1999: philosophy: 80% male (vs. 67% for all fields).
2004: philosophy: 86% male (vs. 64% for all fields).

Race/ethnicity data:

1988: philosophy*: 93% white non-Hispanic (vs. 89% for all fields).
1993: philosophy*: 95% white non-Hispanic (vs. 86% for all fields).
1999: philosophy: 91% white non-Hispanic (vs. 84% for all fields).
2004: philosophy: 89% white non-Hispanic (vs. 80% for all fields).

More information here.

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Robert Townsend
8 years ago

If it could be helpful, in a 2012 survey of philosophy departments in four-year colleges and universities, the Humanities Indicators found 74% of faculty members were women. You can find the summary at http://bit.ly/1U2zdBf. We did not ask about racial composition in the survey, but will be posting up the trend among philosophy PhD recipients at http://bit.ly/1WbUMMZ on April 11th.

Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
Reply to  Robert Townsend
8 years ago

Wait, what? You found there were three women for every man in philosophy departments? I don’t see where that number comes from in the link. Was this a typo?

Richard Zach
Richard Zach
Reply to  Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
8 years ago

26% women and 74 men from the linked table, so I assume it is a typo.

Robert Townsend
Robert Townsend
Reply to  Richard Zach
8 years ago

The dangers of flying on the Internet without an editorial net. My apologies.