Introduction
The present report presents information collected from the 1995 Survey of Humanities Doctorates. This survey is the tenth in a series initiated in 1977 by the National Research Council (NRC) in response to the needs of the federal government for demographic and employment information on humanists trained to the doctoral level. This series—called the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) project—originally included only doctoral scientists and engineers but was expanded in 1977 to include humanities doctorates.1 The purpose of the SDR has been, since its inception, to estimate the number of holders of U.S. research doctorates in science, engineering, and humanities who reside in the United States and to characterize their employment patterns.
The sampling frame for the SDR is the Doctorate Records File (DRF), 2 a census of all research doctorates earned in the United States since 1920. The sample for 1995 included 8,829 humanities doctorates, drawn from a DRF population of 115,043. Data were collected through a self-administered mall survey conducted between May 1995 and August 1995.
This report focuses on those doctorates who earned their degrees in a humanities field from a U.S. institution between January 1942 and June 1994 and who were age 75 or younger and residing in the United States in 1995. The estimated size of this population was 113,700. Chapter 1 describes the size and composition of this population, including such characteristics as gender, race/ethnicity, age, and citizenship. Chapters 2 through 4 profile the employment of humanities doctorates. Special attention is given to the academic sector. Chapter 5 presents changes in employment since 1993. Finally, data on publications, professional society membership, and committee work are presented in Chapter 6. For ease of reference the tables from which the narrative descriptions and figures were drawn are presented together following the chapters.
Appendix A discusses survey methods and outcomes, including response rates, sampling and nonsampling errors, and weighting procedures. Appendix B contains a copy of the survey cover letter and questionnaire.
