The study examines the relationship between income inequality and intergenerational income persistence, known as the Great Gatsby Curve, in the academic field. Using genealogical data from over 300,000 academics and their nearly 10 million papers published across 22 disciplines from 2000 to 2013, the researchers analyze the temporal trends of academic persistence between mentors and their mentees. They also compare these trends across different types of mentorship, different gender combinations of mentors and mentees, and different tiers of institutional prestige. To quantify academic impact, the researchers calculate the aggregated impact of mentors and mentees within a 5-year time window before and after their final mentorship year. This is done by summing up the citations received by their papers published during this period. The Spearman rank correlation coefficients are then calculated to measure the similarity between mentors' and mentees' positions in their discipline's impact rankings. The higher the rank-rank correlation, the higher the intergenerational persistence of scientific impact. The results show a significant upward trend in rank-rank correlations over subsequent mentor-mentee cohorts, indicating an increasing trajectory of persistence. This suggests that mentees have become more likely to share similar positions in their discipline's impact ranking as their mentors over time. This finding aligns with previous observations that early-career researchers' academic impact is increasingly influenced by the prominence and reputation of supervisors or collaborators. To ensure robustness, additional analyses were conducted using normalized citations over time and disciplines as well as measuring Pearson correlations between logarithmic impacts of mentors and mentees. These analyses consistently support the conclusion that there is a positive relationship between academic impact inequality and academic intergenerational persistence. Overall, this study provides detailed insights into academic persistence across various dimensions such as mentorship types, gender combinations, and institutional prestige. It confirms the existence of an academic Great Gatsby Curve in which there is a positive correlation between academic impact inequality and the persistence of impact across academic generations.
- Study examines relationship between income inequality and intergenerational income persistence in academic field
- Researchers analyze temporal trends of academic persistence between mentors and mentees using genealogical data from over 300,000 academics and their papers
- Different types of mentorship, gender combinations, and institutional prestige are compared
- Academic impact is quantified by calculating aggregated impact of mentors and mentees through citations received by their papers
- Higher rank-rank correlation indicates higher intergenerational persistence of scientific impact
- Results show significant upward trend in rank-rank correlations over subsequent mentor-mentee cohorts, suggesting increasing trajectory of persistence
- Early-career researchers' academic impact increasingly influenced by prominence and reputation of supervisors or collaborators
- Additional analyses support positive relationship between academic impact inequality and academic intergenerational persistence
- Study provides insights into academic persistence across various dimensions such as mentorship types, gender combinations, and institutional prestige
A study looked at how rich and poor families pass down their success in the academic field. Researchers studied the relationship between mentors and students by looking at data from over 300,000 academics and their work. They compared different types of mentorship, like who mentored who and how famous the school they were at was. They measured how successful someone's work was by counting how many times it was mentioned by other people. The study found that when a mentor is successful, their student is more likely to be successful too. This means that if you have a famous teacher or work with someone well-known, your work is more likely to be good too."
Definitions
- Income inequality: When some people have a lot of money and others don't have much.
- Intergenerational: Something that happens between different generations, like parents and children.
- Academic persistence: How long someone stays in school or keeps doing research.
- Mentorship: When an experienced person helps guide someone who is learning.
- Institutional prestige: How famous or respected a school or organization is.
- Impact: How important or influential something is.
- Rank-rank correlation: A way to measure how similar two things are in terms of importance or success.
Exploring the Academic Great Gatsby Curve: Examining Intergenerational Persistence of Impact
Income inequality has been a hot topic in recent years, and it is not just limited to economics. A phenomenon known as the “Great Gatsby Curve” has been observed in academic circles, where there is a positive correlation between income inequality and intergenerational persistence of impact. In other words, those with higher levels of influence are more likely to pass on their success to their mentees. To better understand this phenomenon, a study was recently conducted by researchers at Harvard University using genealogical data from over 300,000 academics and nearly 10 million papers published across 22 disciplines from 2000 to 2013.
Methodology
The researchers analyzed temporal trends of academic persistence between mentors and their mentees across different types of mentorship, gender combinations, and tiers of institutional prestige. To quantify academic impact, they calculated the aggregated impact of mentors and mentees within a 5-year time window before and after their final mentorship year by summing up the citations received by their papers published during this period. The Spearman rank correlation coefficients were then calculated to measure the similarity between mentors' and mentees' positions in their discipline's impact rankings; higher correlations indicated greater intergenerational persistence of scientific impact.
Results
The results showed an upward trend in rank-rank correlations over subsequent mentor-mentee cohorts—indicating an increasing trajectory of persistence—which suggests that early-career researchers’ academic impacts are increasingly influenced by the prominence or reputation of supervisors or collaborators. Additional analyses using normalized citations over time/disciplines as well as measuring Pearson correlations between logarithmic impacts also supported this conclusion: there is indeed a positive relationship between academic impact inequality and academic intergenerational persistence (i.e., the Great Gatsby Curve).
Conclusion
This study provides detailed insights into how intergenerational persistence works in academia across various dimensions such as types/gender combinations/tiers of mentorship/institutional prestige etc., confirming that there is indeed an Academic Great Gatsby Curve where those with higher levels of influence are more likely to pass on their success to their protégés than those with lower levels do so less often if at all. This could have significant implications for social mobility among academics since it implies that one’s future career prospects may be largely determined by who one knows rather than what one knows or can do independently—a troubling prospect for many aspiring scholars out there today!
