854 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1015 



THE EELATION OP SALARY TO AGE 



An adequate treatment of the relation 

 of salary to age requires the fiscal history 

 of individual teachers. To infer the 

 changes in salary due to age from the 

 differences found between the salaries of 

 groups classified by age is unsafe, since 

 those who abandoned college training for 

 other occupations at any age are very 

 likely to differ as to salary from those who 

 remain, and since we can not assume that 

 the ability of those entering college teach- 

 ing has remained constant during the 

 forty years past. The foundation hopes 

 to give the topic such adequate treatment 

 in the fixture. The present section reports 

 only measures of the variation of salary at 

 the same age for certain groups — a limited 

 and not exactly representative selection 

 from college teachers of 251 men, all 

 teachers of mathematics or the natural sci- 

 ences in certain universities, who had been 

 active enough in science by the year 1910 

 to be included in the second edition of Pro- 

 fessor Cattell's "American Men of Sci- 

 ence." The choice of these was dictated 

 by practical exigencies and the results 

 must not be taken strictly at their face 

 value, although the use made of the facts 

 has been kept free from fallacies due to 

 the nature of the selection of these indi- 

 viduals. The selection is such as to exclude 

 men of all ages of slight scientific achieve- 

 ment and to exclude somewhat more strictly 

 the youngest. Also, as stated, it is a selec- 

 tion of men from, on the whole, a superior 

 group of institutions. 



In general, we have a fairly steady rise 

 in salaries from the group of age 34 with 

 a median salary of $1,800, through age 36 

 at $2,000, age 38 at $2,200, age 40 at 

 $2,500, age 42 at $2,200, age 45 at $2,850, 

 to $3,200 at age 49, and $3,300 at age 53. 

 For the reasons stated, this result should 

 be used with caution. "What is certain is 



that the effect of age within these limits is 

 real, large and more persistent to later 

 ages than probably would have been as- 

 sumed a priori. 



There is an interesting difference in 

 salary and in the relation of age to salary 

 between the men who were rated in Pro- 

 fessor Cattell's list of the 1,000 most 

 esteemed as scientific workers and those 

 who were less disting-uished. In salary 

 the more disting-uished group have an 

 advantage of about $800 at ages 36 and 

 38, about $1,000 at ages 40 and 42, about 

 $1,500 at ages 44 and 46, and a still greater 

 advantage at later ages. The median 

 salary for the distinguished group rises 

 from about $3,000 at ages 36, 38, 40 and 42, 

 to $3,500 at ages 44 to 46, $4,000 at ages 

 48, 50, 52 and 54, and $5,000 at higher 

 ages; while the median salary for the 

 others remains at approximately $2,000 

 through ages 36 to 46, and is only $2,500 

 and $2,650 in the case of ages 48 to 54 

 and 56 and over. These figures are from 

 too few cases to be used as precise measures 

 of the dift'erences in question, but are ade- 

 quate to prove that ability as estimated 

 by one 's fellow scientists receives very sub- 

 stantial recognition in salary, and that, as 

 in other professions and in industry and 

 commerce, the less gifted men reach their 

 maximum salarj^ much earlier than the 

 more gifted. 



The variation in salaries for the same 

 age is, as students who have made the 

 matter a subject of careful observation and 

 thought would expect, very wide. Men 

 not over two years apart in age differ in 

 respect to salary to such an extent that 

 the highest salary is about four times the 

 lowest. The intervening salaries are spread 

 fully over the scale. Men receiving $2,000 

 may be from under 30 to over 60 years old, 

 and men can be found with that salary at 

 every intervening age. The effect of more 



