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This study aims to apply some concepts of actuarial statistics to the authorship of Iranian ISI papers in the field of chemistry based on Price’s model. The study determines scientific birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate, natural increase rate and life expectancy.

Price maintained that authors in each given period in any field fall into four categories including newcomers, transients, continuants and terminators. He suggested that actuarial statistics could be applied to authorship to calculate death rate and birth rate in scientific fields. A total 25,573 papers written by 59,661 Iranian chemistry authors between 1973 and 2012 were downloaded from Web of Science (WoS) and were subjected to statistical analysis.

The average birth rate was 66.7 per cent, the average death rate was 19.4 per cent, infant mortality rate was 51.2 per cent, average natural increase was 47.3 per cent, the average life expectancy was 1.98 years and the longest scientific age was 22 years. The results show that although a large number of people start their scientific activity, the number of those who terminate their activity in the same year as they start (infant mortality rate) is also large and little continuity exists in the publishing activities of Iranian chemists.

The findings have implications for the planning of human resources in science. They could help maintain a stable scientific labor force and decide for instance whether a larger number of scientists should be trained and hired, or the barriers should be removed so the existing scientists can work for more years. The limitation is that the study is restricted to ISI articles, although they are not the only kind of scientific output.

This is the first study of its kind on Iranian scientific output. It shows that the overall labor force in the field of chemistry in Iran was not satisfactory, as the majority of authors in each period are transients. There is a need for better planning for the labor force.