Faculty hiring and retention determine the composition of the US academic workforce and directly shape educational outcomes¹, careers², the development and spread of ideas³ and research priorities^4,5. However, hiring and retention are dynamic, reflecting societal and academic priorities, generational turnover and efforts to diversify the professoriate along gender^6,7,8, racial⁹ and socioeconomic¹⁰ lines. A comprehensive study of the structure and dynamics of the US professoriate would elucidate the effects of these efforts and the processes that shape scholarship more broadly. Here we analyse the academic employment and doctoral education of tenure-track faculty at all PhD-granting US universities over the decade 2011–2020, quantifying stark inequalities in faculty production, prestige, retention and gender. Our analyses show universal inequalities in which a small minority of universities supply a large majority of faculty across fields, exacerbated by patterns of attrition and reflecting steep hierarchies of prestige. We identify markedly higher attrition rates among faculty trained outside the United States or employed by their doctoral university. Our results indicate that gains in women’s representation over this decade result from demographic turnover and earlier changes made to hiring, and are unlikely to lead to long-term gender parity in most fields. These analyses quantify the dynamics of US faculty hiring and retention, and will support efforts to improve the organization, composition and scholarship of the US academic workforce.

教师的聘用和保留决定了美国学术劳动力的构成，并直接影响教育成果¹、职业²、思想的发展和传播³以及研究重点^4,5。^{然而，招聘和保留是动态的，反映了社会和学术优先事项、代际更替以及按性别6,7,8}、种族⁹和社会经济¹⁰实现教授队伍多元化的努力线。对美国教授队伍的结构和动态进行全面研究将阐明这些努力的效果以及更广泛地塑造学术的过程。在此，我们分析了 2011 年至 2020 年十年间所有授予博士学位的美国大学终身教职教师的学术就业和博士教育情况，量化了教职员工数量、声望、保留率和性别方面的明显不平等。我们的分析显示了普遍的不平等现象，少数大学提供了跨领域的绝大多数教职人员，这种不平等现象因人员消耗模式而加剧，并反映出严重的声望等级制度。我们发现在美国境外接受培训或受其博士大学聘用的教师的流失率明显更高。我们的研究结果表明，这十年来女性代表性的提高是人口流动和早期招聘变化的结果，并且不太可能导致大多数领域的长期性别平等。这些分析量化了美国教师聘用和保留的动态，并将支持改善美国学术队伍的组织、构成和学术水平的努力。