Research in Higher Education, Vol. 30, No. 5, 1989 AGE AND RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY OF ACADEMIC SCIENTISTS Sharon G. Levin and Paula E. Stephan Age-publishing profiles are estimated for four fields of science using data from the 1977 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. The five measures of publishing activity used allow for analysis of the sensitivity of the age-publishing relationship to output measure. Results are presented separately for graduate faculty and faculty at nongraduate departments. Although age is found to be a fairly weak predictor of performance, in physics and earth science older scientists publish less than their youngest peers and in physiology and biochemistry older scientists publish less than their middle-aged colleagues. Given the time frame of the data, the results suggest that the graying of America's scientific community was accompanied with slowed rates of research in higher education. ù, . . . . . . , o . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . æ, . . . . . ù ù ù . . . . ù ù , ~ . , ù . ù . . . . . . . . . , ù , . . . . . , • , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , ù , . . . . . . . . . . ù ù ° . The faculty of America's institutions of higher education is aging because of low rates of retirement and slowed rates of growth in enrollment in higher education. Retirement rates have altered, not only because of the hiring bulges of the 1960s but also because of changes in the law concerning mandatory retirement. The additional academic slots needed to offset this graying effect have not been forthcoming because of a decline in the number of persons of traditional college age as weil as a leveling-off and in some instances decline in the availability of federal funds to support research and training. The consequences of the aging of America's academic community can be examined at several levels. Altbach (1979), for example, focuses on the human dimension, noting that the aging of academic faculties has put increased pressure on young Ph.D.s, who taust compete for fewer positions, write even more to achieve tenure, and face the possibility of tenure quotas. Renner (1986, p. 307) focuses on the financial impact of having a disproportionate number of middle-aged professors and the resulting problems for institutions of "decreasing academic flexibility and increasing costs." Here we focus on the Sharon G. Levin, Departmentof Economics, Universityof Missoufi-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63121. Paula E. Stephan, Policy ResearchProgram, GeorgiaState University,Atlanta, GA 30303. 531 0361-0365/89/1000-0531506.00/0 © 1989 Human Sciences Press, Inc.