Changes in biological anthropology: results of the 1998 American Association of Physical Anthropology Membership Survey

Abstract

In response to the results of the 1996 survey of the membership of the American Association of Physical Anthropology (AAPA), the Executive Committee of the Association sponsored a follow-up survey designed to assess gender and specialty differences in training, employment, academic status, mentoring, and research support. A total of 993 questionnaires was analyzed, representing approximately 62% of the 1998 membership of the Association. There has been a marked shift in the number of males and females in the discipline from the 1960s to the 1990s. While 51.2% of all respondents are female and 48.8% are male, 70% of the students are female. Chi-square tests indicate significant differences between males and females by highest degree, age, status, obtaining a tenure-track position, receiving tenure, and taking nontenure-track employment before receiving a tenure-track position. In recent years, there has been an increasing number of females in the ranks of assistant and associate professors; however, this is not true for the rank of professor. There are also significant differences between males and females by specialty within the discipline: researchers in primatology, human biological variation, skeletal biology, and paleopathology are primarily female, while researchers in human and primate evolution are increasingly female.