Twenty years of minority PhDs in accounting: Signs of success and segregation

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the minority status of the 3213 individuals who have earned U.S. accounting PhDs in the last 20 years and considers the relative progress along the academic pipeline of minority graduates. Overall, this study indicates that minority accounting PhD graduates are making greater progress along the academic pipeline than that indicated in many other disciplines. However, the study finds that while accounting doctoral graduation rates of minorities are increasing they have not reached parity with population rates or academia in general. While the overall cohort of minority graduates appear, on average, to have patterns of employment and promotion similar to the non-minority graduates, recent minority PhD graduates are attending significantly lower ranked schools than either earlier minority graduates or their more recent non-minority peers and are gaining employment in lower ranked institutions than their non-minority peers. The findings suggest that while there are signs of success in minority progress, there are also signs of segregation.