Many attempts were made to find data on appointments in the discipline of history in America. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) has a wealth of publicly available data but none of it can be drilled down to the disciplinary level. Correspondence with helpful personnel at American Institutes for Research (AIR) eventually revealed a similar limitation: they collect data on gender from the Bureau of Labour Statistics based on standard occupational classification (SOC) codes but not at the six-digit level of those codes that would provide figures at a disciplinary level.

The American Historical Association does not collect workforce data but they were willing to share their membership data (and we are very grateful for this). The figures shared show that in 42 per cent of members of the AHA in 2019 were female. There are almost equal numbers of female and male PhD candidates (51 and 49 per cent) and equal numbers of assistant professors. There are slightly more female postdocs (53 per cent) and slightly fewer associate professors and adjuncts (44 and 47 per cent). Only 35 per cent of members at professorial level are women and only 27 per cent of members who are emeritus are women.

Figure 1: Distribution of American Historical Association members, by level and gender, 2019

Source: American Historical Association. Original data has categories for ‘gender non-conforming’ and ‘prefer not to answer’ – the combined responses in these two categories account for 0.12 per cent of the total responses and are not reflected above.