William Proctor Williams says:
It is (was?) a well known fact that something like 70%
of the professoriate is in the same 10-year age
bracket. And that bracket (I am one of them) is in the
55 to 65 year range. That means that about 70% of the
professoriate (without regard to subject) will retire
in the next decade.
No, I'm afraid that is a myth. The age distribution of History
professors is spread out. I checked a sample of date-of-PhD in a
recent AHA GUIDE, and discovered this:
PhD's by DECADE 1993-94 AHA GUIDE
decade % of all profs
1950s 7%
60s 29%
70s 32%
80s 22%
90s 11%
100%
1975 = average date of PhD
That is, 7% + 29% = 36% of history professors have PhDs from the
decades of the 1950s and 1960s.
The other 64% of history profs got their PhD in 1970 or later,
and are not likely to retire soon. The implication is that the
"wave of retirements in the 1990s" is a myth.
Richard Jensen
U of Illinois-Chicago