Postdoctoral Experience and Academic Position Acquisition——Net Effect and Heterogeneity of Academic Labour Market Returns
With the increasing competition in the academic labor market,it has become more common worldwide for PhD holders to choose the work in postdocs research.However,many postdocs not only need to cope with the huge research pressure during their present work,but also feel uncertain about their career prospects in the future after leaving postdoctoral positions.The returns from the investment in postdoctoral experience in the academic labor market deserve attention.Based on the follow-up survey data of engineering and biology postdocs who started work in doctoral workstations in 2017,this study uses propensity-score matching(PSM),inverse-probability weighting regression and other methods to analyze heterogeneous returns to postdoctoral work experience in the academic labor market.The results show that postdoctoral work experience is conducive for the students to the likelihood of obtaining an elite academic position,especially for those who made smooth research progress during their postdoctoral period.Subsequent research finds that the access to elite academic positions varies significantly depending on the department and locality where a postdoc has worked,indicating a substantial heterogeneous effect:on the one hand,postdocs who have worked in a prestigious academic institution are more likely to obtain an elite academic position than those who have worked in a less famous academic institution;and on the other hand,compared with local postdocs,postdocs who have studied overseas have certain advantages in the academic labor market and the probability for them to obtain an elite teaching position is obviously higher.
postdoctoralelite academic positionsanalysis of heterogeneity
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