The Postdoc Queue: A Labour Force in Waiting
Name
PostDocQueueArticle.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.36 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
932cf831c79c7724f6e0d7076fc867bb
Author(s)
Andalib, Maryam A.
Ghaffarzadegan, Navid
Larson, Richard Charles
Date Issued
March 30, 2018
Journal
Systems Research and Behavioral Science
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Citation
Andalib, Maryam A. et al. "The Postdoc Queue: A Labour Force in Waiting." Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 35, 6 (November/December 2018): 675–686 © 2018 Wiley
Version
Author's final manuscript
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. Keywords: science policy; research policy; science workforce; postdoc; queueing theory
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2510
