The Recruitment and Migration of Canadian Social Scientists: Presidential Address Delivered at Ottawa on June 7, 1967, at the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political

The Recruitment and Migration of Canadian Social Scientists: Presidential Address Deliveredat Ottawa on June 7, 1967, at the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Canadian PoliticalScience AssociationAuthor(s): Anthony ScottSource: The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienned'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Nov., 1967), pp. 495-508Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/140019 .

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THE RECRUITMENT AND MIGRATION OF CANADIAN SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

ANTHONY SCOTT University of British Columbia

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT OTTAWA ON JUNE 7, 1967, AT THE

THIRTY-NINTHI ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CANADIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

ALLOCUTION PRONONCEE PAR LE PRESIDENT A OTTAWA, LE 7 JUIN 1967, A

L'OCCASION DE LA TRENTE-NEUVIEME ASSEMBLEE GENEERALE DE L:ASSOCIATION

CANADIENNE DES SCIENCE POLITIQUES

This paper presents some information about the two disciplines which have hitherto composed our association. It is largely a by-product of a series of studies in which I have been collaborating on the intemational migration of scientists and engineers.' My paper arises from our research because, as I hope to suggest, many of the particular characteristics of the collectivity of political scientists and economists in Canada arise from its uncertainty about its geo- graphical reference. This in turn is a consequence of the dependence of Canadian academic departments, and of other employers, on sources outside Canada for the training of new recruits.

The subject is by no means new. At least part of my theme was put before this association almost twenty years ago by Professor H. F. Angus in his 1949 presidential address "Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences,"2 in which much consideration was given to advanced study abroad. In 1952 Professor J. E. Hodgetts reviewed three contemporary reports (by Professors Dawson, Wat- kins and Keirstead, and Macpherson) on the teaching of political science in Canada3; they make gloomy reading today. We have also had the advantage of a series of papers on research in the social sciences, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council of Canada, by Messrs. Ostry, Dawson, Clark, and others.4 Finally, we are able to learn much about the history of our association, and our profession, from obituary articles, from the articles by Professors Bladen5 and Taylor6 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Association,

'See especially H. G. Grubel and Anthony Scott, "The Characteristics of Foreigners in the American Economics Profession," American Economic Review, 57, no. 1 (March 1967), 131-45; and Anthony Scott and Herbert Grubel, "The International Migrations of Canadian Economists," mimeo., 1966. 2H. F. Angus, "Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences," this JOURNAL, XV, no. 3 (Aug. 1949), 299-309. 3J. E. Hodgetts, "Dives and Lazarus: Three Reports on the Teaching of Political Sciences," ibid., XVIII, no. 1 (Feb. 1952), 88-91. 4See especially, S. D. Clark, "The Support of Social Science Research in Canada," ibid. (Special Supplement), XXIV, 1959. 5V. W. Bladen, "A Joumal is Born: 1935," ibid., XXVI, no. 1 (Feb. 1960), 1-5. 6K. W. Taylor, "Economic Scholarship in Canada," ibid., 6-18.

XXXIII, no. 4. November/novembre, 1967



496 ANTHONY SCOTT

from Professor Goodwin's book,7 and from the annual published reports of the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association. It must be noticed too that DBS has in the last ten years provided increasing amounts of information about Cana- dian university staffs and their students, including data classified down to the detail of individual departments, such as "Departments of Political Economy," and degrees, such as "MAs. in Political Science."8 The best of this data was used by Professor Johnson in his notable paper on "The Social Sciences in the Age of Opulence" delivered to the Association in Sherbrooke last year.9

Nevertheless, any student of the history of our two subjects in Canada who consults this shelf of references is bound to be disappointed. The books and articles often mention a small group of men, some of them by name. But out of how many possible names? How big was the academic profession in economics and poltical science? How many people were turned out by departments, as BAs., MAs. and PhDs? Then, one wonders, how many of them stayed in Canadian universities; how many went into government service, industry or politics; and how many migrated? What other sources of recruitment have there been? Is it true that, in our two subjects, one PhD in twenty-five in the United States first obtained a Canadian BA?10

Migration and recruitment, and their implications for Canada, are my main theme. I shall try to minimize the discussion of statistics; but first, I should like to present my estimate of our total number. In our role as association- founders this year, the members of your Executive Council found that there were many opinions on the subject of our number, but little measurement. Our total CPSA membership list of past years has been unhelpful not only because many eligible Canadians do not belong but also because many members would rightly hesitate to describe themselves as either economists or political scientists. Furtlher, our membership and subscription list is divided between academics, civil servants, private and industrial subscribers, and libraries.

Our Secretary-Treasurer took a first step in clearing this up by conducting a survey of academic departments throughout the country. This "census" produced the following information. In the autumn of 1966 our academic departments of economics and/or political science consisted of about 270 political scientists and about 370 economists; that is, a total of 640 was divided in the ratio of 40 to 60.

Our Secretary-Treasurer's analysis of his own subscription lists then made it possible to go beyond this census, to eliminate some of the library and institu- tional subscribers, and to deduce that in Canada there must also be about 300 economists, agricultural economists, public-administration graduates, political scientists, and statisticians oriented toward our subjects and with similar

7Crauford D. W. Goodwin, Canadian Economic Thought (Durham, NC, 1961). 8DBS, Salaries and Qualifications of Teachers in Universities and Colleges, 1963-64, (Cata- logue no. 81-203); and DBS, Survey of Higher Education, Part II: Degrees, Staff and Summary, 1963-64, (Catalogue no. 81-211). 91-Iarry G. Johnson, "The Social Sciences in the Age of Opulence," this JOURNAL, XXXII, no. 4 (Nov. 1966), 423-42. 10L. R. Harmon and Herbert Soldz, compilers, Doctorate Production in United States' Universities, 1920-1962, with Baccalaureate Origins of Doctorates in Sciences, Arts and Professions (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, 1963).



ORIGINE ET MOBILIT1, DES SCIENTIFIQUES SOCIAUX CANADIENS

ANTHONY SCOTT

Le taux de croissance des faculte's de sciences sociales est plus e'leve', depuis 1949, que celui des universite's elles-memes. Ce phe'nomene est lie' au fait que les inscriptions d'etudiants sous-gradues en economique et en science politique ont augmente' plus rapidement que pre'vues. La croissance des de'partements et des corps professoraux se trouve, de ce fait, lie'e au nombre d'e'tudiants sous- gradue's de sorte que le de'veloppement de la recherche et des e'tudes superieures est une conse'quence et non une cause de la croissance.

Le recrutement ne'cessaire a cette expansion explique que les professeurs d'e'conomique et de science politique sont, dans l'ensemble, plus jeunes que les autres professeurs d'universite. En effet, plus des trois-quarts ont moins de 45 ans. La plupart des etudiants canadiens dans ces deux disciplines vont poursuivre leurs e'tudes superieures aux Etats-Unis, et 60 pour cent des professeurs sont recrute's parmi ces canadiens. Les 40 pour cent qui restent sont nes outre-mer et ont 6te 6duques outre-mer ou bien ils sont ne's aux Etats-Unis. Tres peu ont ete entie"rement e'duques au Canada. En conse'quence, la plupart des personnes recrute'es sont jeunes et sortent des ecoles graduees des Etats- Unis ou d'Europe.

Trois implications se de'gagent: (1) Les de'partements canadiens vont con- tinuer a se tourner vers les e'coles gradue'es e'trangeres pour leur recrutement. Plusieurs Canadiens ne considerent pas les e'tudes superieures au Canada comme une source de recrutement, mais favorisent des e'tudes superieures pour attirer de nouveaux professeurs et pour d'autres raisons. (2) La recherche est caracte'rise'e par les sujets et les me'thodes en vigueur dans les e'coles gradue'es. L'absence d'un circuit d'e'coles gradue'es implique l'absence de sujets et de methodes de recherche s'inspjirant des problemes politiques canadiens. (3) Si les e coles gradue'es canadiennes doivent concurrencer 1'excellente source de recrutement actue1lle, elles devront consacrer des fonds beaucoup plus conside- rables a la recherche.

La situation actuelle du recrutement et de la mobilite' assure un mouvement international pour plusieurs anne'es. Peut-etre les pressions des e'tudiants sous- gradue's, le de'veloppement des e'coles gradue'es et les programmes de recherche commenceront-ils bientot a produire un flux d'etudiants susceptibles d'e'ntrer sur le marche' mondial et d'agir comme catalyseur dans l'application de me'thodes de recherche adapt6es aux problemes typiquement canadiens.

advanced qualifications. Adding these to the 640 in the universities would give about 940, or almost 1000 economists and political scientists in Canada. But so far, apart from some remarks in the Glassco Report, we really have very little detail about the social scientists in government service, let alone those in industry. So our number lies between 900 and 1000, of whom 640 are in



498 ANTHONY SCOTT

universities, of whom 40 per cent are in political science and 60 per cent are in economics: such is the best estimate I can produce for 1966-67.11

I would like to advance the discussion now by examining first the 40/60 ratio and then the total of 640 estimated for the universities. From here on I will assume that those in the public service and industry have been recruited in about the same ratios as those in the universities.

The ratio, I think, is fairly defensible. For example, a DBS count of persons in departments of economics, political science, or joint departments in 1963-64, puts economics at about 65 per cent, which for data as rough as these is close enough to our own 60 per cent.12

But the 40/60 ratio is still going to surprise many people. Political scientists emerging from the bondage of joint departments and joint associations fre- quently give t-he impression that their numbers are not only smaller than they should be, but are tiny compared with those in economics. And as recently as 1950-51, Professor Macpherson was cited by Professor Hodgetts as saying that "there would now be at least three or four times as many economists as political scientists in the universities."13 In what follows, I assume that Professor Macpherson was correct in 1950, and that the political science staff of Canadian universities has grown more rapidly than the economics staff.

Is the total university number, 640, about what we would expect? One test is a comparison with the growth of other totals in the general field of education. We do not really know how many academics there were in 1949-50 or earlier. But the data in Table I may be helpful. These very rough figures, which are

TABLE I

GROWTH OF ENROLMENT AND FACULTY, CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES

1949-50 1963-64 Number Index Number Index

Total faculty(a) 5,500 100 11,000 200 Total enrolment(b) 63,000 100 160,000 250 Economics & Political

Science faculty(c) 135 100 400 300

SOURCES: (a) DBS, Survey of Higher Education, and Canada Year Book. (b) V. W. Bladen, Financing Higher Education in Canada (Toronto, 1965),

Tables 1-4, and AUCC extension. (c) Hodgetts, "Dives and Lazarus" and DBS, Salaries and Qualifications,

1963-4, 68.

indeed merely orders of magnitude, suggest that economics and political science together have had a rate of growth in the universities which is half again as high as the average rate for the rest of academic faculty. We can be rather more precise if we confine ourselves to the period between 1960 and

"3-A paper by R. B. Bryce, "The Economist and the Public Service," presented to a CPSA meeting, June 9, 1967, suggests that 220 econiomists in the public service hold Master's or Doctor's degrees. I believe this figure to be compatible with the 300 in the text who are to be added to the 640 university professionals to reach some meaningful total of "economists and political scientists." 12DBS, Salaries and (ualifications, 1963-64, Table 21. 13Hodgetts, "Dives and Lazarus," 89.



Canadian Social Scientists 499

1964. In that short span, DBS reports, faculty employment in all subjects grew by 29 per cent; in the social sciences by 35 per cent, but in economics and political science together by 38 per cent.14 Once again, we get the clear impression that our two subjects have been growing more rapidly than the faculties of which they are parts.

I do not believe we have any good explanations for the divergent trends I have mentioned (the faster growth of political science than of economics faculties; and the faster growth of their total than of total universities' faculties). Indeed, the faster growth of economics and political science is not generally recognized. We have, however, from Professor Johnson's address last year, one suggested cause: the proliferation of graduate instruction. Now it is true that in Canada ten or fifteen institutions which did not offer formal graduate course-work or supervision in our subjects a few years ago do so today; and it is true that we have correspondingly more students at the graduate level. But the statistics available to me do not confirm that the rate of growth of graduate instruction in our subjects is today much greater than in the humanities or the natural sciences-indeed, the rate of graduate degree- granting suggests the opposite.15 At the graduate level, we are laggards.

My own explanation for our current faster faculty growth is simply that an increasing proportion of the larger numbers of undergraduates are choosing to take one or more courses in economics and political science. In other words, our "service" role, that of providing some depth and breadth in the social sciences, is in increasing demand by students who are specialising in a wide spectrum of other fields. The complexity of our subjects evidently prevents our depending heavily on part-time or partly qualified instructors-the recourse of such departments as English and French. And because of the smallness of our graduate enrolments we have few part-time graduate teaching assistants. Therefore we are keeping up with our enrolments by adding to our professional staffs at a faster rate than other university departments. I am aware that this explanation is so far unsubstantiated by data; but I feel sure that many departmental administrators and textbook publishers will agree with me that the biggest single influence in our subjects today is not reduced teaching loads, not increased research, not new graduate instruction, but simply the effect of more undergraduates.

Thus we find ourselves attempting, year after year, to maintain a greater relative rate of growth in our own numbers than is true of other subjects either in the universities or in the public service. It is my hypothesis that to this growth can be attributed many of the special characteristics of our two fields today. We have no need to invoke higher standards, graduate instruction, professional attitudes, or the like, as independent causes of our present situation. A sufficient explanation of everything we experience and observe can be derived from rapid undergraduate growth.

My implied model runs something like this: At the outset, with little growth, economics and political science in Canada experienced a modest expansion of research and graduate work, consolidating the general increase in scale that

14DBS, Salaries and Qualifications, various years. 15DBS, Survey, various years.



500 ANTHONY SCOTT

was the aftermath of the Second World War. However, little extra provision for graduate work was made within universities, and little provision for research was made in the public service or industry. The slow expansion of university departments was based on the retrieval of Canadians trained in American and European graduate schools; research in government and industry was undertaken by Royal Commissions and consultations.

This nearly stationary situation was then disturbed by a rapid growth in undergraduate enrolment, which was met by an expansion of teaching staff. This "undergraduate-propelled" expansion was met by some re-allocation of existing Canadian staffs, by increased hiring from US graduate schools, by the hiring of Canadians who had tended already to settle in the US or Europe, and by the recruitment of non-Canadian staff in Europe and the US.

Canadian departments now grew more rapidly than before. The difficulty and expense of persuading persons in the middle-age brackets to come to or return to Canada led to an unusual concentration of persons in the younger ages and ranks. These people in turn are more in touch with recent research than if their equivalents had been hired at higher ranks and ages. Their enthusiasm for higher standards, more a result of their age distribution than of anything unusual in their training, produces an augmented demand for research funds, for disciplinary contacts and associations. This is the increased profes- sionalism that Professor Johnson described in his presidential address last year.

At the same time, the sheer increase in scale in the departments produces rather more capacity for handling graduate students than was previously available. This capacity is matched by a desire to have graduate teaching assistants available to help with the undergraduates. It is augmented by the realization that teacher recruitment is easier in departments that have graduate programs evolving. Thus, the model can account for increased graduate work solely on the basis of "undergraduate-propelled" expansion.

It is impossible in the time available to confirm all the steps in this model. Indeed, I must admit that some of the evidence I might produce is quite consistent with other, and competitive, explanations of recent trends. Let us examine, however, one neglected set of evidence: that of the pattern of ages among our colleagues. (See Table II)

TABLE II UNIVERSITY ECONOMISTS AND POLITICAL SCIENTISTS

Economics Pol. Science Combined All university Year depts. depts. depts. Total fields

Median Age 1963-4 37 36 39 37 39 1962-3 37 37 36 37 39 1960-1 37 37 38 37 39 1958-9 38 36 38 37 40 1956-7 37 33 38 37 40

Number 1963-4 205 116 88 409 9,000

Percentage 45 & over 1963-4 21 16 27 22 31

SOURCE: DBS, Salaries and Qualifications, 1963-4, Tables 18 and 21.




One would expect that the attempt to add to our numbers would have led to unusually large concentrations of younger economists and political scientists; and this is exactly what has happened. The median age of all academics is 39, but the median age of economists is 37 and that of political scientists only 36. Furthermore, the data show us that the period of recruiting young social scientists began fairly recently: for, unlike almost all other disciplines, the median age of political scientists and economists was apparently rising until 1960-61, reflecting the ability of these two groups either to recruit older men, or to get along with an aging body of professors.16

The great age difference between our groups and the rest of the university world is brought out best by examining the percentage over the half-way age in a forty-year university-teaching career. This half-way age we may take to be 45, as there are very few academics under 25 years of age and very few over 65. The most significant percentage here is that for total economists and political scientists: 22 per cent only were over 45 (or, 78 per cent were under 45), compared to 31 per cent of the total university community in the older age group. Youthfulness is apparently particularly conspicuous in political science departments, for in them the percentage over 45 is only half that of the university community as a whole.

It goes without saying that these percentages over 45 are also much lower than in the labour force as a whole. Academics do not seem to realize how young their group is compared with the outside community. And economists and political scientists today are among the youngest groups on Canadian campuses or, I believe, the Canadian public service.

Let it not be thought that this is a situation common to all North America. The growth in enrolment and in university faculties in Canada is unusually high by international standards; it follows that one would expect to find that in the United States our two subjects are taught by rather older groups of teachers than in Canada. Again, our expectation is borne out, at least for economists. A recent survey'7 of the American economics profession found that its age structure was for all purposes normal, with about 40 per cent of the teachers aged 45 or more. This percentage of older men is obviously far higher than for all Canadian university personnel, and is almost tuwce that for Canadian university economists.

I turn now to the question of the recruitment of these many young economists and political scientists. It is not unlikely that Canadian universities, governments, and industry are attempting to obtain at least 130 new recruits every year with PhDs or the equivalent in economics and political science.18 Nothing like this number is being produced in Canadian graduate schools as yet, though we are told that, with a gestation period of five years or more, a

16DBS, Salaries and Qualifications, 1963-64, Table 21. t7American Economic Association, Committee on the National Science Foundation Report on the Economics Profession, "The Structure of Economists' Employment and Salaries, 1964," American Economic Review, LV, no. 4 (Supplement, Part 2) (Dec. 1965), 18-19. 18The University establishment for economists would appear to be growing at about 15 per cent per year, and that for political scientists even faster. On the other hand, the demand outside university for political scientists is growing relatively and absolutely slowly. The estimate of 130 new recruits amounts to about 10-12 per cent of the total stock of 900.



502 ANTHONY SCOTT

larger flow will soon be evident.'9 But it would be surprising if many more than twenty per year, in both fields, were produced in the next few years. This leaves more than 100 per year to be found elsewhere. A few years ago, the universities welcomed a small flow from the public service, but this reservoir is now trying to recharge itself and cannot allow more to flow out. What are then the effective sources of PhD recruits?

First, some universities have been successful in bringing fully trained academics from the US and abroad. A questionnaire I circulated recently, for example, suggested that Canada now has more American economists fully trained in the US than it has Canadian economists fully trained in Canada.20 I believe that this same dependence on Americans, and fewness of Canadian PhDs, may hold for political science, to judge by a sample of university calendars which have been examined for me. My colleagues in political science have confirmed my impression that the Canadian-born, Canadian-trained PhD is still very scarce.

Second, the flow to Canada from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia of fully trained economists and political scientists is probably about equalled by the flow there of Canadians in search of higher degrees.

Finally, this leaves us with the majority: the economists and political scientists of Canadian birth who have obtained their PhD or highest degree in the United States. United States' graduate schools have long been a magnet for young Canadian BAs. For example, recent Canada Council data on the country where pre-doctoral award winners expect to receive their degrees do show some increase in the percentage staying in Canada, but the percentage going to the US is still striking: about 60 per cent for economics and 40 per cent for the political science students (see Table III). In both fields, they seem to migrate to roughly the same "leading" graduate schools: Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Princeton, MIT, Wisconsin, Stanford, Michigan, Minnesota, and Northwestern.2 Indeed, so great is the concentration of Canadian economists and political scientists going to the "leading" American graduate schools, and so high is the percentage of Canadian teachers who have attended such schools, that it appears that Canadians in these fields are more fortunate than Americans or than Canadians in other fields in being able to attend the most excellent American schools.22

In any case, wherever Canadians now go to graduate school, my questionnaire and my study of university calendars both suggest that about 60 per cent of Canadian academics in economics and political science today obtained their highest degree in the United States. It follows that, in the social sciences generally and in political science and economics in particular, we have staffs 19See, for example, the recent report of the Canadian Association of Graduate Schools, "Regarding Expenditure Requirements and the Escalation of Grants in the Humanities and Social Sciences," (distributed by the AUCC, 1967). This report, evidently written by natural scientists, gives no attention to the existence or possibility of study outside Canada. 20Scott and Grubel, "The International Migrations of Canadian Economists." 21Allan M. Cartter, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1966). See also A. Somit and J. Tanenhus, American Political Science: A Profile of a Profession (New York, 1964). 22Harmon and Soldz, Doctorate Production in US Universities.



Canadian Social Scientiss 503

TABLE III DISTRIBUTION OF CANADA COUNCIL DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS BY COUNTRY IN WHICH RECIPIENTS EXPECT TO RECEIVE THEIR DEGREE (percentages)

Total humanities

Political Social and Social Economics Science Sciences Sciences

Country 1964 1967 1964 1967 1964 1967 1964 1967

Canada 11 22 n/a 27 22 29 23 35 USA 77 62 40 50 47 40 34 UK 11 13 19 17 14 22 17 France - 8 l 11 7 15 10 Other 2 4 f 2 f 4

SOURCE: Communications from Canada Council.

which (in spite of the homogeneity arising from almost two-thirds of their number having done their undergraduate work in Canadian universities) have very few products of Canadian graduate schools and which are, by reason both of their prevailing youthfulness and their recent completion of PhD work, very much more in touch with the leading United States' and European centres of graduate instruction and research than is the case in other parts of the university.

This concludes my description of the university staffing and recruiting situation as I see it in our two subjects. I have every reason to believe that in the public service and in industry the same forces are at work, with shortages of the qualified staff permitted by establishments, a tendency to recruit young and inexperienced people to take both new positions and those vacated by older men promoted or retired, and an increased willingness to recruit not only Canadians directly from foreign graduate schools but also non-Canadians. The public service, however, has been able to give on-the-job training to recruits holding only Bachelors' or Masters' degrees, and thus to provide a substitute for graduate school instruction; the universities have not been willing thus to recruit permanently many persons with less than PhD qualifications. Conse- quently, we do tend to find a larger proportion of persons with some foreign training in the universities than in the public service, even when the research or qualifications are very similar.

To the extent that the description has verified my model, I am perhaps to be excused for indulging in a little presidential speculation about its significance for the future and for policy. Although a wide variety of implications might be discovered, let me refer to three: the implications for the market for economists and political scientists; the implications for the character of our research; and the implications for the support of investigations and research.

The implications of my model and my few facts for the market for economists can be illustrated by contrasting my model with alternative hypotheses. If our recent growth and development in Canada were, for example, simply the result of increased public demand for our professional services and for our research,



504 ANTHONY SCOTT

our sustained growth would depend upon the maintenance and growth of this novel popularity. Then we would expect our development to be highly vulnerable, just as Canada's role in the space race is vulnerable, to changes in public policy about science or national defence.

However, if instead I am correct that our recent growth and development originates with an increase in the number of undergraduates, then our future growth depends upon the future course of undergraduate enrolment. This seems fairly secure. While there is no knowing what percentage of future undergraduates will wish to take courses in our two subjects, it is clear from recent predictions that total enrolment at least will continue upwards. If so, we must either reduce our standards of teaching, or continue to call on North American graduate schools for more recent PhDs in economics and in political science. If I am correct that Canadian enrolment is going to grow at a faster proportional rate than American, it is also probable that we will call for an increasing share of these new PhDs.

Probably this implies that Canadian departments must each year recruit well beyond that group of Canadian students that is willing to return to Canada, and continue the present trend of recruiting an increasing proportion of non- Canadians, especially Americans, in each year's draft. Each year Canadian universities will have brought to their attention clearer evidence of the unity of the North American market for economists and political scientists. Each year an increasing number of Americans will be on Canadian staffs, so that each year a higher proportion of the annual turnover in each department will involve some people moving "back" across the border. Hence there will not only be a continuation of today's international competitive conditions in the market for young and mobile PhDs, with a resultant equalization of conditions of work and salaries, but also a growth of this vigorous mobility and international competition into steadily older age groups.

It now appears that Canadian gross incomes (salaries plus outside stipends and earnings) are still about 10 per cent below American incomes, each expressed in its own currency. This gap has been narrowing in recent years, especially at the lower ranks, as the Canadian urgency in drawing on the US market increased. If I am correct in my forecast, it should continue to narrow, and at all levels.

At the same time, the output of Canadian graduate schools should increase and more new PhDs begin to enter into competition with those emerging from US and European schools. Their ability to do so will depend upon the extent to which Canadian schools can first get the undergraduate job sufficiently under control so as also to be able to provide graduates with a training equal in excellence to that which students from Canada are still offered in the United States. Like any product in international commerce, the symbol of this excellence will be the appearance of a vigorous American and European demand for the products of Canadian graduate departments. The demand may already have appeared, but the facts are that so far there are almost no Canadian- trained PhDs among American economists. Until this excellence has appeared, many Canadian potential graduate students may agree with the feelings expressed by our President in 1949:




The plain fact is that if I were called on to advise a young Canadian, qualified to undertake a course of advanced study, I should urge him, if at all possible, to seek admission to some of the great universities of the world, and that, if I were consider- ing an appointment in Canada, I should consider a period of study abroad a better preparation for it than a similar period of study in Canada.23

When he wrote that, Professor Angus was also a Dean of Graduate Studies and he referred also to subjects and faculties beyond the social sciences. Whatever they felt then, most of our colleagues in those other faculties today would think his advice not only defeatist but also wrong in fact: they would claim that the typical Canadian science student can do as well (or better) in Canadian universities as he can by travelling to other countries.

Many of our colleagues in political science and economics, however, do not argue this way. They have no desire, apparently, to reduce the dependence of Canada upon foreign graduate schools. Like Dean Angus in 1949 and even Professor Johnson at these meetings last year, they instead see expanded graduate instruction in Canada chiefly as a way of strengthening the universities and departments, by giving undergraduate instructors the chance to work at higher levels, and by attracting promising young faculty members with the promise of an escape from the tedium of undergraduate mass instruction. To the extent they argue and act this way, they tend to consolidate and unify the two professions, economics and political science, each into one North American academic marketplace, chiefly supplied with instructors by the big twenty American graduate schools.

My own view is that we cannot much longer dabble in graduate work for the convenience of the department and the university. We must convince ourselves and our candidates that we are setting out to produce graduate students fit to take their place, anywhere in North America, in competition with the products of the most excellent establishments. Real unity of the North American academic marketplace will have been achieved when our graduate students are eagerly demanded by United States' universities.

The second implication of the dependence of our development upon the expansion of undergraduate enrolment is in the character of our research. Research takes on character not only from the circumstances under which it is carried out and the auspices under which it is financed, but also from the background and experience of the researcher himself.

If our growth were propelled by a resolve to develop social science research in Canada for its own sake, the probable result would be a network of smaller programs in economics or political science centring on the larger graduate schools of Canada, carrying out the investigation of questions selected on independent grounds of their inherent theoretical interest, their appeal to the curiosity of investigators, or their national or local importance. But because our growth is instead propelled by the quest for more teachers, our recruits bring with them the questions and programs of research centres elsewhere, and tend to maintain their connections long into their Canadian academic careers. Because the network of Canadian programs does not appear, our researchers later find themselves detached not only from the original development of 23Angus, "Graduate Studies," 300.



506 ANTONY SCOTT

United States' policy-oriented or policy-stimulating research, but also detached from Canadian developments which in more propitious circumstances might serve to build a connection between the growth of more social science research and the research foundations of national or provincial policy.

I am not deploring our connections with universities and researchers elsewhere; I am not bewailing our dependence, in spite of the Canada Council, on foreign sources of finance; I am not ignoring the difference between contract and basic research. I merely suggest that, as a matter of degree, not of kind, the character of our research is always influenced by the sources of our growth. To put the suggestion briefly, let me suggest this: our accustomed willingness to accept the training of ourselves, our contemporaries, and our future recruits in policy-oriented social science departments of other nations creates not only a welcome dependence on them as sources of manpower and high standards but also a less acceptable dependence on them as sources of inspiration and character in matters of research. If our subject matters were medicine or geophysics, this dependence would not matter, and might indeed be a source of pride. But as students of a society divided up into nations, provinces, and cities, we must realize that we are depending on departments elsewhere that are conducting studies, and evolving methods for studies, of serious problems that are not our most serious problems. We are in danger of defining our fields solely by what foreign departments are doing.

Is there a remedy? Certainly. But it is not to cut ourselves off from these foreign graduate departments. We must accept leadership and standards wherever they are. But we must simultaneously, and self-consciously, develop our own graduate departments as sources of a significant stream of recruits who can carry to research programs everywhere a little of Canadian graduate schools' slightly distinct difference in concern and orientation. Another way of putting the matter is to say that the growth of graduate instruction as a serious occupation in Canada, and not simply as a by-product of the growth of undergraduate departments, will in the long run have an important role in shaping the character of Canadian research.

This brings us to the third implication of the enrolment-propelled growth in departments of economics and political science: if graduate work and research are to be merely the outgrowth of undergraduate enrolment, they must at least be good enough and stimulating enough to attract new teaching recruits to our departments. If, on the other hand, they are to assist in the production of highly qualified PhDs, they need considerable expansion.

We must beware of absolute, instead of relative, figures. Although universities now have more research funds than they used to, there is little evidence that faculty are any better equipped to withstand the lures of summer contract research. And although the Canada Council now has more funds than before, it also has more academics to serve, a higher price level to meet, and larger government and commercial competition to meet. Indeed, the prevalence of the guaranteed summer research stipend in American universities suggests that Canada now has relatively less untied research money per academic than it had five or ten years ago.

The third implication of our recent growth, therefore, has two aspects. We




will be unable to continue easily to attract the best men from foreign and American graduate schools unless research funds at all levels and for many purposes are forthcoming in larger amounts. We are now comfortably depen- dent on the North American market for new people, but we are also in danger of losing our best people back into this market. Both the flow of new people and the stock of our present colleagues will dwindle unless the support of research (like salaries and working conditions) is maintained at the best North American standard.

But this is a level of research support sufficient merely to retain a supply of teachers for our expanded undergraduate enrolment. If, in addition, we seriously set out to build a group of graduate centres adequate to persuade, say, only one-third of the present flow of Canadian graduate students to the best American and foreign universities rationally to undertake their training and research here, the amount of Canadian research and scholarship money required will be much higher. In the first place, we must enlarge our graduate faculties still more. And in the second place we must meet the foreign level of research support that presently rightly convinces so many young Canadians that they would be foolish to enrol in the austerity of a Canadian graduate department. And in the third place, and most important, our universities will have to be convinced that graduate instruction is not simply a means of attracting teaching recruits, but an end in itself to be accorded time and space.

Before concluding, it is appropriate to ask whether we really have a choice. Is the level of graduate research and instruction that is "undergraduate- propelled" really much below the standard that would turn out a steady stream of Canadian PhDs for the North American market? I must concede that the two routes do intersect: a firm determination to undertake real graduate instruction on a significant scale will certainly help with recruitment and with research on problems peculiar to Canada; and the lesser objective of merely supplying the graduate work needed for the attraction of an undergraduate staff will, at today's rate of undergraduate expansion and with today's professional orientation of all economists, certainly and in spite of itself also produce some good graduate students.

The chief difference between the two routes may therefore only be in their directness and speed. Perhaps the choice, then, is not between them. But pointing out either of the ultimate aims, each of which can also take care of our other aims, at least makes clear a third danger which our universities and our public service must avoid. This is abandoning the expensive retrieval from the North American labour market of economists of graduate-instruction and research calibre, and a recourse instead to undergraduate-propelled growth along high-school or trade-college lines. For it is possible, too, to recruit from Canadian, American, and overseas schools graduates of the time-serving class who will be content with the minimum involvement in research or graduate instruction of any kind. The ever-present danger that university administrations will, by their budget policies, condemn us to a level of second-rate recruitment at home and abroad would, however, be the subject of another Presidential speech.

To conclude, let me recapitulate the arguments in my address. Our recent



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growth in political science and economics is not a consequence of independent development of all aspects of our work, but may be explained as a simpler result of unexpectedly large undergraduate enrolments. These have led the universities (like the public service) to step up their rates of retrieval of young Canadians abroad, and of recruitment of young Americans and foreigners. The consequent staff growth has created some increased capacity to deal with graduate students, and this growth in graduate work has in turn made it easier to attract and hold competent teachers.

I have called this type of growth undergraduate-propelled, to distinguish it from a program of growth impelled forward primarily by desires to instruct graduate students or to undertake social science research in Canada. I suspect we would find the same circumstances in other social science and in the humanities, but our two subjects are certainly the leading cases.

This model implies either a continuation of our dependence on graduate schools in the United States and abroad with a concomitant partial neglect of the process of research development with native problems and materials, or a greatly expanded graduate instruction program in Canada, intended to turn out a stream of PhDs acceptable among all North American universities and of a concomitant expansion of research funds and support. There is no choice before us at the present time: we must continue to depend, as we have in the past, on the American and foreign graduate school. But as our two journals and associations grow, and as the bolder spirits among us innovate in research, it may be that we will develop that ideal mixture of dependence and inde- pendence which the expansion of undergraduate numbers seems to have put temporarily beyond our grasp.



Documents

The Recruitment and Migration of Canadian Social Scientists: Presidential Address Delivered at Ottawa on June 7, 1967, at the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political