  This study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of
an individual's entire scientific careers. We track 'late-career' scientists
(N=324,463) in 16 STEMM disciplines (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics, and medicine) from 38 OECD countries for up to five decades. We
examine the details of their mobility patterns between the top, middle, and
bottom productivity classes. Methodologically, we turn a large-scale
publication and citation bibliometric dataset into a comprehensive,
longitudinal data source for research on careers in science. The global science
system emerges as highly immobile: 60% of global top performers continue their
careers as top performers and half of global bottom performers as bottom
performers. Jumpers-Up and Droppers-Down are extremely rare in science. Our
regression analyses show that productivity is highly path dependent: for all
disciplines examined, there is a single most important predictor of being a top
performer: being a top performer at an earlier career stage.
