THE GRAYING OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY

• Published in: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Vol. 98; no. 608; pp. 941 - 947
• Main Authors: THRONSON, HARLEY A., LINDSTEDT, S. L. "BUD"
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Astronomical Society of the Pacific 01.10.1986
• Subjects: Age; Astronomical research; Astronomy; Average age; Graduate studies; Histograms; Physics; Physiology; Retirement; Universities
• ISSN: 0004-6280; 1538-3873
• DOI: 10.1086/131848

We consider the distribution of scientific ages of professors in ten astronomy departments in the United States and find that the average astronomer is growing older at a rate of about 6 months per year at present. This aging will continue through the end ofthe 1990s, at which time we predict that the average professorial astronomer will be around 50 years old. The cause of this aging is the expansion ofthe profession that began in the late 1960s, an expansion that was not maintained for more than one decade. As a consequence, perhaps as many as one-third of all the professor-level astronomers in the country obtained doctorates between 1964 and 1970, inclusive. For comparison we briefly consider the distribution of ages of physicists and physiologists. The number of physiologists as a function of date of doctorate has been slightly increasing since around 1960; thus this profession has also been slowly getting older with time. The average age of physicists is significantly greater than that for astronomers. Because ofthe significant influence of social and political forces on university decisions, we find that the total budget for NASA has been a good predictor for the past demand for professorial astronomers, but the total NSF budget is not. We predict the future demand for astronomers in the U.S. and suggest, as a result ofthe expansion in the 1960s, that demand will increase significantly near the end ofthe 1990s, making employment easier to obtain and suitable job candidates, particularly postdoctoral associates, more difficult to find. We point out that because of greater average age, the physics community will have to find solutions to the problems of an elderly population before astronomers will. Furthermore, there may be a small increase in the demand for astronomers as large numbers of physicists retire in the early-to mid-1990s. Additional consequences of a graying astronomy are briefly considered.