Working Paper: NBER ID: w31835
Authors: Xuan Jiang; Joseph Staudt; Bruce A. Weinberg
Abstract: Is the labor market for US researchers experiencing the best or worst of times? This paper analyzes the market for recently minted Ph.D. recipients using supply-and-demand logic and data linking graduate students to their dissertations and W2 tax records. We also construct a new dissertation-industry “relevance” measure, comparing dissertation and patent text and linking patents to assignee firms and industries. We find large disparities across research fields in placement (faculty, postdoc, and industry positions), earnings, and the use of specialized human capital. Thus, it appears to simultaneously be a good time for some fields and a bad time for others.
Keywords: STEM; PhD; labor market; career outcomes
JEL Codes: I23; J24; O3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| PhD recipients from certain fields (A12) | favorable labor market outcomes (J48) |
| fields such as social sciences, medicine, and communications (A12) | higher likelihood of securing faculty positions (I23) |
| fields like chemistry, geosciences, and biology (Q29) | weaker demand for faculty positions (J29) |
| 10 percentage point increase in share of PhD recipients in postdoc positions (I23) | 36.60% reduction in earnings by year three (J17) |
| 10 percentage point increase in share of PhD recipients in postdoc positions (I23) | 77 percentage point reduction in wage growth (J31) |
| one standard deviation increase in the relevance score of a dissertation to industry (Y40) | 12.091% increase in earnings (J31) |