Petersen, AM; Jung, WS; Yang, JS; Stanley, HE. 2011. Quantitative and empirical demonstration of the Matthew effect in a study of career longevity. PNAS 108 (1): 18-23

[Eugene Garfield]

Petersen, AM; Jung, WS; Yang, JS; Stanley, HE. 2011. Quantitative and 
empirical demonstration of the Matthew effect in a study of career longevity. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA 108 (1): 18-23..

Author Full Name(s): Petersen, Alexander M.; Jung, Woo-Sung; Yang, Jae-Suk; 
Stanley, H. Eugene
Language: English
Document Type: Article

Author Keywords: career length; hazard rate; output; Poisson process; 
quantitative sociology
KeyWords Plus: CUMULATIVE ADVANTAGE; HUMAN MOBILITY; RELATIVE AGE; 
HEAVY TAILS; SCIENCE; PRODUCTIVITY; NETWORKS; DYNAMICS; SYSTEM; 
DISTRIBUTIONS

Abstract: The Matthew effect refers to the adage written some two-thousand 
years ago in the Gospel of St. Matthew: "For to all those who have, more will 
be given." Even two millennia later, this idiom is used by sociologists to 
qualitatively describe the dynamics of individual progress and the interplay 
between status and reward. Quantitative studies of professional careers are 
traditionally limited by the difficulty in measuring progress and the lack of data 
on individual careers. However, in some professions, there are well-defined 
metrics that quantify career longevity, success, and prowess, which together 
contribute to the overall success rating for an individual employee. Here we 
demonstrate testable evidence of the age-old Matthew "rich get richer" effect, 
wherein the longevity and past success of an individual lead to a cumulative 
advantage in further developing his or her career. We develop an exactly 
solvable stochastic career progress model that quantitatively incorporates the 
Matthew effect and validate our model predictions for several competitive 
professions. We test our model on the careers of 400,000 scientists using data 
from six high-impact journals and further confirm our findings by testing the 
model on the careers of more than 20,000 athletes in four sports leagues. Our 
model highlights the importance of early career development, showing that 
many careers are stunted by the relative disadvantage associated with 
inexperience.

Addresses: [Petersen, Alexander M.; Jung, Woo-Sung; Stanley, H. Eugene] 
Boston Univ, Ctr Polymer Studies, Boston, MA 02215 USA; [Petersen, Alexander 
M.; Jung, Woo-Sung; Stanley, H. Eugene] Boston Univ, Dept Phys, Boston, MA 
02215 USA; [Jung, Woo-Sung] Pohang Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Phys, Pohang 
790784, South Korea; [Jung, Woo-Sung] Pohang Univ Sci & Technol, Grad 
Program Technol & Innovat Management, Pohang 790784, South Korea; [Yang, 
Jae-Suk] Columbia Univ, Columbia Business Sch, Sanford C Benstein & Co Ctr 
Leadership & Eth, New York, NY 10027 USA

Reprint Address: Petersen, AM, Boston Univ, Ctr Polymer Studies, Boston, MA 
02215 USA.

E-mail Address: amp17 at physics.bu.edu; hes at bu.edu
ISSN: 0027-8424
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1016733108
fulltext: 
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/12/16/1016733108.full.pdf+html