| This study uses data from the National Science Foundation and the National Research Council's Survey of Doctoral Recipients and the Survey of Earned Doctorates to describe the socioeconomic outcomes of 10,844 US doctoral scientists and engineers. Events occurring in the first six to eight years are considered. Socioeconomic outcomes are advantages, the likelihood of: (1) attaining high structural location, and (2) upward mobility moves on institutional prestige, rank, tenure, and salary.;The social system of science and engineering within academia is conceptualized as a class-based system comprised of numerous institutional internal labor markets (ILM). This study is informed by the structuralist belief that even after the effects of individual characteristics on attainment are accounted for, structural locations still make a difference. From a class-based perspective, this study (1) establishes the system's class structure and its essential properties, (2) examines the composition of people who occupy different class locations, (3) describes the mobility movements among class locations over time, (4) specifies the salience of the effect-generating mechanisms which facilitate or inhibit success, and (5) identifies the connection between class structural locations and individual characteristics.;The investigation is guided by analytical approaches derived from the works of sociologists: Wright, Meinsenhelder, Blau, Hachen, and Spilerman. A class-based model is constructed where each of academia's valued resources (prestige, rank, tenure, and salary) is assigned as a class-stratifying criteria to the appropriate level of the academic system. Prestige establishes the Marxian (macro) properties of ownership and control, while the dimensions of rank, tenure, and salary establish academia's multidimensionality and complexities which are based on Weberian (micro) notions of status and life style.;The study's findings show that the effects of individual characteristics vary by class structural locations. Evidence of sustained structural effects is seen in the effects of (a) the same individual sociodemographic characteristics, and (b) educational characteristics at different structural locations. Structural effects are also evident in the facilitatory and/or inhibitory effects of prestige positions on outcome on the rank, tenure, and salary hierarchies. |
