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what do researchers do abroad?
09 August 2010
By Tennie Videler
I have over the last few months found out about two international studies on employment destinations in similar vein to Vitae’s What do researchers do? (fondly known as WDRD, and WDRDS for the one by subject). I thought I’d give a bit of a summary. Happy to discuss them, answer questions and most of all hear of similar reports!
Career trends of recent doctoral graduates in Japan- diversity of career paths and international mobility by Toshiyuki Misu and Akira Horoiwa. A comprehensive survey on the career paths and international mobility of recent doctoral graduates in Japan. How does it compare to WDRD? Here is some of what I picked out:
o The cohort numbers are similar to those in WDRDS but I didn’t get a feel for size of the different disciplines
o Only 26% of their doctoral graduates are female (compared to 46% in the UK)
o Japanese unemployment is even lower at 2.2% (3.4% in the UK)
o There is less international mobility, both into Japan: 17% of doctoral graduates come from overseas (mostly China and South Korea) to our 44%; and out of Japan after graduation: 2.7 % compared to 6.9% of UK-domiciled.
o Number of people moving into a research staff in higher education position is similar: 20% of respondents (23% in the UK)
o The study has a longitudinal element, focusing on doctoral graduates in higher education research careers. It shows that after 5 years about 30% are still postdocs.
o Of Japanese doctoral graduates taking up postdocs in the States, half are known to return over 5 years (83% of respondents)
Careers of Doctorate Holders: Employment and Mobility Patterns by Laudeline Auriol deals with significantly larger cohorts across the world. This paper presents the results of the first large-scale data collection conducted in the framework of the OECD/UNESCO Institute for Statistics/Eurostat project on the Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH).It deals with data from around 20 countries, but different countries appear in different figures, presumably because of issues with comparability of the data (the UK is in very few). The size of the researcher cohort in all OECD countries is described as 200 000 in 2006 (compared to 13 000 total in the UK in 2006), risen from 140 000 in 1998. In the USA there were 340 800 doctoral graduates from 1996-2006. The next largest population is in Germany: 273 156
o Gender: 30-50% women but their share is rising with time (46% in the UK).
o 38% of 2006 science and 21% of engineering doctoral graduates are female (UK: 53% in biological sciences, 61% in biomedical sciences and 27% in physical sciences and engineering over 2003-2007.The disciplines are divided up differently in WDRD).
o Unemployment rates 1996-2006 do not exceed 2-3 % (3.4% in the UK). In some countries unemployment is significantly higher for women than for men (4.7% for women, 1.3% for men in Austria, for example). Doctoral graduates in the humanities are at higher risk of unemployment (not the case in the UK: physical sciences and engineering have had the highest percentage).
o The majority of researchers do not hold a doctoral degree. In the business sector only 10-15% do.
o One in ten doctoral graduates is self employed….
o They looked at incomes as well and drew the conclusion that in most countries doctoral graduates are better paid when they do not work as researchers….
Andy Humphrey11 August 2010 at 11:00 AM
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"They looked at incomes as well and drew the conclusion that in most countries doctoral graduates are better paid when they do not work as researchers…." This made me smile. Also published recently is the Royal Society of Chemistry's Trends in Remuneration survey, which looks at employment and salaries of RSC members. I was intrigued to learn that my salary is currently below the lowest quartile for members of my age working in higher education. I consider myself comfortably well paid, compared with what I earned as a newly qualified Ph.D., so this was a bit of a shock! It just makes me think of all the work our employers get out of us for free...
Sarah Davies13 August 2010 at 03:05 PM
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I was struck by that final point as well, Andy. I can't work out whether I'm surprised, disappointed, indifferent, horrified or what - obviously most of us aren't in for the money, but does this just indicate how undervalued researchers are? Or that there are non-financial benefits such as flexibility which make up for pay? Or that we are just plain underpaid compared to other professions? Answers on a postcard please...
Tennie Videler16 August 2010 at 10:03 PM
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yeah, that's why I included the last point! I do think it should be approached, as all stats, with caution. It probably represents averages and a few mega highly paid doctoral graduates working in the city or higher management jobs will raise it. In industry I can imagine it is true that people who remain 'at the bench' may earn less eventually than those who climb the management ladder. I think in general research staff are not as badly paid as they think.....
Matthew Salois23 August 2010 at 04:26 PM
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The are certainly a number of non-pecuniary benefits to being an academic researcher that compensate for the comparatively lower salary. Not to defend the distribution of salaries, of course, but we do tend to enjoy more flexibility and more prestige than our private sector counterparts. I am curious if the surveys compared post-doc salaries between countries. Do researchers tend to be paid the same across countries or are they paid higher in some countries?