system
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human
Trends in academic career prospects?

Hi all, I work currently at a physics institute at a European university. A few hours ago, I overheard a conversation between an older professor and a few postdocs about academic career prospects. The conversation, which was more like an argument, centered around a disagreement about how the career prospects of younger researchers have changed in the last few decades. The professor's argument was that things are as they were when he was young and that young people today give up too early. The postdocs disagreed.   


This got me thinking and looking for information showing trends in career prospects  for new academics in the last few decades. How is it different for somebody getting started now compared to somebody starting in 1990? Does anybody know any really good papers or reliable information sources on the topic?
gpt
Two common things that absolutely are true between researchers starting out a few decades ago and now:

1. Grant funding is smaller (inflation-adjusted dollars) and more competitive. Once your track record is established (such as this senior professor), this may not seem as true, but average age at receiving that all important first research grant is going up, more submissions are received by funding bodies per opportunity, and those dollars don't go as far (and are collaboratively shared more frequently), meaning you can no longer count on supporting an entire research group on a single major grant as they did in the past.

2. More women are working and dedicated to their own careers (whether as the academic candidate or other). The  academic paradigm of nomad life and total immersion in career is at odds with the two body problem of balancing dual careers, and the absence of anyone having a stay-at-home spouse or traditional "housewife" to manage everything that's not research (I.e. Cooking dinner every night, household, having and caring for kids, planning and maintaining a social life, etc). The model doesn't work.