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Between academia and labour market—the occupational outcomes of PhD graduates in a period of academic reforms and economic crisis

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Abstract

The article examines the mid-term occupational outcomes of two cohorts of PhDs graduated in 2004 and 2008 in Italy. This comparison allows the authors to explore changing PhD’s occupational prospects after recent academic reforms (e.g. cuts to public funding, introduction of fixed-term positions for assistant professors) and the economic crisis. Population data from the ‘Istat Survey on the Occupational Outcomes of PhD graduates’ is used to analyse PhD’s employability, international mobility, type of contract and occupation 5 years after obtaining a doctoral degree. Empirical results show that academic reforms and the economic crisis coincided with decreasing employment in academia and increasing chances of having a fixed-term contract, being employed abroad and working in research-related occupations outside academia. Moreover, PhD graduates from hard disciplines, such as engineering, are generally better off compared to PhD graduates in soft fields, such as sociology. Finally, the results suggest that the academic reforms reduced the chances to work in academia more in soft rather than in hard academic disciplines.

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Notes

  1. Data for the expected hirings come from ‘Unioncamere – Ministero del Lavoro, Sistema Informativo Excelsior’. Data from 2012 are available online at http://excelsior.unioncamere.net/index.php?option=com_previsioniarp&Itemid=1611#. Data from 2006 to 2011 were provided in a series of reports titled ‘Gli sbocchi professionali dei laureati nelle imprese italiane’. Data for the number of PhD recipients come from the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) and are accessible at the following link: http://statistica.miur.it/scripts/postlaurea/vdottori1.asp (data access: 9 February 2017).

  2. It is possible that reforms of the Italian academic system led a growing proportion of PhD holders to pursue an academic career abroad. However, we do not test that argument in this paper.

  3. In the first round (2009), the survey was carried out between December 2009 and February 2010, while in the second round (2014), the survey was carried out between February and July. Therefore, the 2006–2010 cohorts and the 2004–2008 cohorts were surveyed approximately 3 and 5 years after the completion of their doctoral studies, respectively.

  4. Respondents were asked whether their jobs involve research activities ‘mainly’, ‘partly’ or ‘not at all’.

  5. This variable is conditional on being employed, and therefore is only used when analysing outcomes related to contract type, work abroad and type of job.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

    Giampiero Passaretta

  2. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi 8, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Paolo Trivellato

  3. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Via Verdi 26, 38122, Trento, Italy

    Moris Triventi

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  1. Giampiero Passaretta
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Correspondence to Giampiero Passaretta.

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Passaretta, G., Trivellato, P. & Triventi, M. Between academia and labour market—the occupational outcomes of PhD graduates in a period of academic reforms and economic crisis. High Educ 77, 541–559 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0288-4

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