Abstract
It is accepted worldwide that highly skilled human resources play a vital role in the development of economies. Doctoral training is the highest formal education an individual can attain, and doctorates have the best qualification for the creation and implementation of new knowledge and are more likely to have networks that can contribute to spreading this knowledge. This paper looks at careers patterns of doctorate holders, by exploring the results of the Careers of Doctorate Holders Survey, 2009. We examine the determinants of doctorates to engage in a research career, identifying what generates mobility throughout their careers, and what are the main factors affecting the earning of doctorates. We perform this analysis for four different countries: Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Spain, allowing for a comparison in an international context.
Our results show that these four countries have distinct career patterns for doctorate holders, and that experience plays a role in determining career prospects for doctorate holders. Experience, age, gender, field of study and career mobility is all predictors of earnings differentiation.
This work intends to contribute to the current reflection on the careers of doctorate holders, showing the factors predicting success, and different patterns for highly qualified individuals in each country. This analysis provides an important background to the development of policies for each country, for the observation of the evolution of each system, providing the ability to compare and look at different systems together.
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Notes
- 1.
We follow the defitnition in the Frascati Manual, «One full time equivalent (FTE) is thought as one person year. Thus, a person who normally spends 30 % of his/her time in R&D and the rest on other activities should be considered as 0.3 FTE» (2002: 99).
- 2.
From the total 100 firms with more R&D expenditure in 2012, only 29 firms authorized the publication of information about doctorate holders in FTE. From the remaining 71 firms, 22 did not have doctorate holders performing R&D, 14 did not authorize the publication of this information and 35 did not authorize the publication of any data. For more detailed information please check: http://www.dgeec.mec.pt/np4/206/%7B$clientServletPath%7D/?newsId=11&fileName=Ranking2012_PublicacaoEmpresas_022015.pdf
- 3.
For further international comparisons please check CDH-2009 results in: http://www.oecd.org/innovation/inno/oecdunescoinstituteforstatisticseurostatcareersofdoctorateholderscdhproject.htm
- 4.
Careers on Doctorate Holders survey use the Fields of Science and Technology (FOS) international classification. The six main scientific areas are: natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences, agricultural sciences, social sciences and humanities. For more information see http://www.oecd.org/innovation/inno/frascatimanualproposedstandardpracticeforsurveysonresearchandexperimentaldevelopment6thedition.htm#fos
- 5.
Accordingly with the CDH instruction manual, “a postdoc position is generally understood as a temporary position for holders of advanced research qualifications (i.e. after finalising their advanced research qualification studies) where the main activity is research, and the holder receives some kind of financial support. However, there are very different forms of postdoc positions worldwide” (Auriol et al. 2012).
- 6.
The OECD developed a project to explore and compare micro-data within countries, which required the creation of a universal coding guide and data harmonization of the participant ten countries.
- 7.
Data on earnings is not available for Denmark.
- 8.
Law 205/2009 and law 207/2009 of the 31st of August 2009 (see http://dre.tretas.org/dre/259825/ and http://dre.tretas.org/dre/259826/).
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the KnowInno Project at the OECD, namely to the participant countries such as Israel, Japan, Russia and Slovenia, and to ‘Max’ Misu for coordinating the micro data work as well as to Karl Boosten (Belgian Science Policy), Carter Bloch (Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy), Erick Christiansen (Statistics Denmark), Luis Sanz-Menéndez, Koen Jonkers and Laura Castro (Scientific Research Council, CSIC, Spain) for the provision of the regression results for Belgium, Denmark and Spain. The authors also thank the Directorate for Science and Education Statistics Portugal (DGEEC) for allowing access to the CDH data. The authors thank the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) for partial support through the project PTDC/IVC-ESCT/3788/2012.
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Duarte, J., Mendonça, J. (2016). Determinant of Careers Patterns for Doctorate Holders. In: Gokhberg, L., Shmatko, N., Auriol, L. (eds) The Science and Technology Labor Force. Science, Technology and Innovation Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27210-8_9
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