IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/srbeha/v35y2018i6p675-686.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Postdoc Queue: A Labour Force in Waiting

Author

Listed:
  • Maryam A. Andalib
  • Navid Ghaffarzadegan
  • Richard C. Larson

Abstract

Postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) comprise a large sector of the US scientific workforce. A substantial majority of postdocs are in a holding pattern, seeking tenure‐track assistant professorships. We model the postdoc population as a labour force in waiting—in queue. Postdocs enter the queue as they start their first postdoctoral appointment, and they leave in one of two ways: (i) obtaining the ‘queue service’ desired by the majority of postdocs, that is, an assistant professorship, or (2) reneging from the queue and seeking other positions. Using recent data from the US Survey of Doctorate Recipients, we show that the postdoc queue is one of those rare queueing systems where most of the queuers eventually renege rather than receive service. We find that only about 17% of postdocs ultimately land tenure‐track positions. The mean time in queue (postdoc career length) is 2.9 years, with significant variations across disciplines. We discuss policy implications. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Maryam A. Andalib & Navid Ghaffarzadegan & Richard C. Larson, 2018. "The Postdoc Queue: A Labour Force in Waiting," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(6), pages 675-686, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:srbeha:v:35:y:2018:i:6:p:675-686
    DOI: 10.1002/sres.2510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2510
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sres.2510?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ran Xu & Navid Ghaffarzadegan, 2018. "Neuroscience bridging scientific disciplines in health: Who builds the bridge, who pays for it?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 1183-1204, November.
    2. Rosa Hendijani, 2021. "Analytical thinking, Little's Law understanding, and stock‐flow performance: two empirical studies," System Dynamics Review, System Dynamics Society, vol. 37(2-3), pages 99-125, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:srbeha:v:35:y:2018:i:6:p:675-686. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/1092-7026 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.