Does a science postdoc pay off in the US?

To answer the age-old question of whether it makes financial and career sense for a PhD scientist to do a postdoc, economist Stephanie Cheng reconstructed the career paths of more than 155,000 US PhD researchers across 10 science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) fields. Analysing data from 1960 to 2013, she found that having postdoctoral experience does not significantly improve one’s chances of obtaining a tenure-track job in the sciences, and that it actually reduces average lifetime earnings.

Rather than provide an education premium, Cheng discovered that each additional postdoctoral year is associated with a $3730 (£2800) decrease in ‘undiscounted’ average lifetime earnings, which does not take into account the cost of time spent doing the postdoc. Her findings, presented at a conference of the US non-profit National Bureau of Economics Research in July and yet to be published, are based on data from the US National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates and its Survey of Doctorate Recipients.