Not by Productivity Alone: How Visibility and Specialization Contribute to Academic Earnings

earnings inequality in particular has been central to scholarly investigation because monetary resources serve as a basis for other resources, such as power, authority, and autonomy (Smith 2002). Although sociologists have examined earnings inequality across time (e.g., Maume 2004), place (e.g., Howell and Bronson 1996), industry (e.g., Kreft and De Leeuw 1994), and occupation (e.g., Weeden 2002), investigations of inequality within occupations are far more frequent (Morris and Western 1999). Studying inequality within occupations allows researchers to control important but difficult-to-measure occupational characteristics, like segregation and demand, and parse out the relative influence of achieved and ascribed characteristics, such as productivity and gender. Controlling for occupational-level characteristics, however, may obscure important changes over time that could alter the relevance and effect of these individual characteristics. Within academe, for instance, large changes have occurred in the past few decades—changes that may have altered the landscape upon which individuals strive for success. First, academic research has grown exponentially, not only in terms of productivity (i.e., number of contributions to scientific journals) but also in terms of professional associations, journals, and training (Schofer 2004). Perhaps as a response to this rapid growth, academic fields have diversified—allowing more topics to fall under their Not by Productivity Alone: How Visibility and Specialization Contribute to Academic Earnings