Is the Job Market Depressing History Faculty Salaries?
The most troubling data in the CUPA-HR survey shows the relative erosion of salaries for history faculty, particularly at the junior level. Given the recent fluctuations in the history job market, this is hardly surprising, since a high level of competition for jobs undercuts demands for a better starting salary. As a result, the discipline is now running well below the average for all fields, and even lagging behind other fields in the humanities and social sciences, after enjoying above-average earnings until the mid-1990s (Figure 1). The substantial effects of the poor job market become evident when the salaries for historians at the new assistant professor level are compared to their counterparts in the rest of the academy (Figure 2). In 1992 93 the difference between average salaries for new assistant professors in history and the rest of the academy was about 10 percent in public institutions new assistant professors in history earned an average of $31,515 as compared to $34,639
