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Does Holding a Postdoctoral Position Bring Benefits for Advancing to Academia?

Author

Listed:
  • Eric S. Lin

    (National Tsing Hua University
    IZA)

  • Shih-Yung Chiu

    (Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI))

Abstract

Postdoc is a special transitional position for those with a doctoral degree and is usually regarded as an investment to accumulate the additional human and social capital needed to facilitate future job searches or to add to an academic reserve army of unemployed PhDs. Given the prevalence of postdoctoral positions nowadays, it is crucial to explore the role played by postdoctoral participation in the post-PhD labor market. By taking advantage of a comprehensive data set from the National Profiles of Human Resources in Science and Technology in Taiwan, we first explore several characteristics associated with the choice of a postdoctoral position for newly-minted doctoral degree holders, such as age, discipline or the time taken to complete the degree. It is found that older doctorates have a lower probability of taking up a postdoctoral position, and a longer elapsed time to the PhD degree is less likely to result in a postdoctoral position. The postdoctoral engagement also hinges on the field of study, implying that those majoring in Science tend to engage in postdoctoral work more than those majoring in Social Science. The control function approach is utilized to address the possible endogenous decision of postdoctoral experience when estimating the effects of postdoctoral positions on the current career choices between academic and non-academic jobs. The empirical results suggest that engaging in postdoctoral positions could increase the probability of advancing to the academic sector by about 6.1 %. The heterogeneous effects of gender, major and cohort in regard to the postdoctoral experience are also found by splitting the data. In particular, gaining postdoctoral experience does help males engineering majors and older cohorts obtain jobs in academia. Moreover, we experiment with several groupings for the definition of being awarded an academic position and obtain very robust empirical results.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric S. Lin & Shih-Yung Chiu, 2016. "Does Holding a Postdoctoral Position Bring Benefits for Advancing to Academia?," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 57(3), pages 335-362, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reihed:v:57:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11162-015-9388-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11162-015-9388-5
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    Cited by:

    1. Hongfeng Song & Anqi Hu & Xueyan Li, 2025. "Mentor support and postdoctoral sustainable careers: evidence from China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Lu, Xiao & McInerney, Paul-Brian, 2016. "Is it better to “Stand on Two Boats” or “Sit on the Chinese Lap”?: Examining the cultural contingency of network structures in the contemporary Chinese academic labor market," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2125-2137.
    3. Anne Laure Humbert & Elisabeth Anna Guenther & Jörg Müller, 2021. "Not Simply ‘Counting Heads’: A Gender Diversity Index for the Team Level," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 689-707, September.
    4. Valentino Parisi & Margarida M. Pinheiro, 2023. "PhD holders propensity to work in research-intensive sectors: evidence from Italy," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 296-305.
    5. Jeongeun Kim & Molly Ott & Lindsey Dippold, 2020. "University and Department Influences on Scientists’ Occupational Outcomes," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 61(2), pages 197-228, March.
    6. André D. S. Lerche & Christian L. Burk & Bettina S. Wiese, 2023. "Leaving the Ivory Tower: Vocational Application Orientation of Early Career Academics," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 64(3), pages 402-422, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    PhD; Postdoctoral position; Academia; Job choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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