| Nancy Wile
Teachers College, Columbia University
Factors related to employment success for PhD recipients in the sciences
FINAL REPORT:
In recent years, the academic job market for Ph.D. recipients has become very tight. With increasing frequency, new doctorates are taking positions outside the academic sector where professional opportunities seem to exist in greater number. However, most programs still only prepare student for academic employment, without a full understanding of how the workforce has changed for scientists. The nature of work in the non-academic sector and the characteristics of the doctorates employed there are not well-known. There has been a need to analyze the trends in the workforce to pinpoint changes in job activity and career progression, and then to examine how doctorate education may change to better fit those needs. This study does that and keeps its focus on recent graduates, who have the most difficulty finding suitable employment. This project will expand upon my dissertation, which made extensive use of the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Survey of Doctorate Recipients. Through an analysis of these data sets, the dissertation examined the trends in employment outcomes and the factors in graduate education that are related to the employment outcomes for recent Ph.D. recipients in the physical sciences. Because it was a dissertation, its scope remained narrow. It focused solely on outcomes for those in the physical sciences and did not have examine other disciplines within the sciences. This project will examine recent trends and other factors which may affect the employment success of recent Ph.D. recipients in a variety of scientific fields, including biological sciences, health sciences, physical sciences, psychology and the social sciences.
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