Academic vs. Biological Age in Research on Academic Careers: A Large-scale Study with Implications for Scientifically Developing Systems

TL;DR

This large-scale study examines the validity of using academic age as a proxy for biological age across disciplines, revealing it is reliable mainly for STEMM fields and less so for humanities and social sciences.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the limitations of academic age as a proxy for biological age, especially highlighting discipline-specific differences and implications for global academic systems.

Findings

Academic age correlates well with biological age in STEMM disciplines.

The proxy performs poorly for humanities and social sciences.

Social scientists and humanists participate later in global science networks.

Abstract

Biological age is an important sociodemographic factor in studies on academic careers (research productivity, scholarly impact, and collaboration patterns). It is assumed that the academic age, or the time elapsed from the first publication, is a good proxy for biological age. In this study, we analyze the limitations of the proxy in academic career studies, using as an example the entire population of Polish academic scientists visible in the last decade in global science and holding at least a PhD (N = 20,569). The proxy works well for science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) disciplines; however, for non-STEMM disciplines (particularly for humanities and social sciences), it has a dramatically worse performance. This negative conclusion is particularly important for systems that have only become recently visible in global academic journals. The micro-level data suggest a delayed participation of social scientists and humanists in global science networks, with practical implications for predicting biological age from academic age. We calculate correlation coefficients, present contingency analysis of academic career stages with academic positions and age groups, and create a linear multivariate regression model. Our research suggests that in scientifically developing countries, academic age as a proxy for biological age should be used more cautiously than in advanced countries: ideally, it should be used only for STEMM disciplines.