Data on Postdocs

Up to Postdoctoral Life Information about where postdocs get jobs, postdoc salaries, numbers of postdoc, and more.

Labor Market for PhDs

Doctors Without Orders: Highlights of the Sigma Xi Postdoc Survey

Results of Sigma Xi's survey of 7600 postdocs at 46 US institutions. Very interesting discussion of salaries, training, and administrative oversight.

Careers and Rewards in Bio Sciences: the disconnect between scientific progress and career progression

by Richard Freeman, Eric Weinstein, Elizabeth Marincola, Janet Rosenbaum, and Frank Solomon, August, 2001.

What Follows the Postdoctorate Experience? Employment Patterns of 1993 Postdocs in 1995

NSF Issue Brief, November, 1998. "By 1995, about one-third of the 1993 postdocs had found academic employment. However, only 12 percent were in tenure track positions at 4-year colleges or universities, a rate that varies little across five of the six major postdoc fields (the exception was agricultural sciences with 6 percent). Another 21 percent had appointments ranging from low-pay adjunct teaching positions to somewhat better paying jobs with research or administrative responsibilities. Industrial employment was reported by 17 percent; the remainder was in Government or nonprofit sectors. Fewer than 2 percent were unemployed, and only a small number—3 percent—reported that they were employed in a job unrelated to their degree because a job related to their degree was not available."

The changing length of PhDs | Naturejobs Special Report (12 August 2004)

Four years has become the magic number for many graduate programmes in the United States and Europe. Eugene Russo explains the logic behind the maths. As a prospective graduate student five years ago, Amy Caudy was interested in the new Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory...

Has the Use of Postdocs Changed?

NSF Issue Brief 99-310. "This issue brief examines the self-reported postdoc histories of holders of science and engineering Ph.D.s from U.S. schools to address the question whether the use of postdocs has changed."

Postdoc headcount

The NSF's postdoc headcount: total postdoctoral appointees in doctorate-granting institutions, ordered by the number of postdocs: 2005.

Postdocs: What We Know and What We Would Like to Know

Proceedings of a 2002 NSF/CPST/Professional Societies Workshop.