Changing Nature of Social Science Ph.D. Careers Released in Major National Study

The UW Graduate School released a landmark study in December 2007 documenting social science career trends, garnering broad national media attention that included coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education and discussion at the Council of Graduate Schools 47th Annual Meeting, held in Seattle Dec. 5-8.

It is the first multi-disciplinary study to examine the status of doctoral students in the social sciences at least five years after receiving their degrees.  The national survey was administered at 65 doctoral-granting universities; 3,025 individuals responded.  The study, "Social Science Ph.D.s – Five+ Years Out," concludes that doctoral programs need major changes in how they prepare students for the world beyond graduate school.

The Graduate School’s Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) conducted the study, with financing from the Ford Foundation.  The center is the first in the U.S. devoted to the study of doctoral education.

To see study highlights and for more information about CIRGE, visit http://depts.washington.edu/coe/cirge/; the Chronicle story can be found at http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/11/848n.htm.

"Ph.D. programs should move out of the 19th century and into the 21st by bringing professional competencies from the margin to the center of doctoral education," the report says.

"Doctoral education in the U.S. is still structured, for the most part, as if all students were destined to become university professors," says Maresi Nerad, CIRGE director and Graduate School associate dean. "There is little recognition that working conditions have changed and that the demographics of graduate students have changed."  In this sample, for example, about half of the respondents were women and about a third did not have faculty positions.

Most graduate programs operate as if the average graduate student was an "unencumbered young man," the report states.  Schools need to confront the work-family tension that exists in doctoral careers, both for men and women, more than half of whom are married and in their early to mid 30s by the time they receive their Ph.D.

The report also finds that, while men and women are equally likely to study in prestigious doctoral programs, women lag behind men in earning tenure.  Women also report their careers are more constrained than men's by marriage and family.

Relatively few students in the study attained a tenure track position immediately after receiving a doctorate, instead finding work in one or a series of temporary positions.  Six years after receiving their doctorates, some 17 percent still held temporary or part-time jobs.

Nearly 20 percent of doctoral recipients surveyed ended up in careers outside academia, but they received little information about career realities and scant preparation for careers in business, government and non-profit sectors, according to the report.  The report suggests that career preparation should begin early in doctoral programs and should include job search strategies and how to address the tensions of dual career couples.

"Doctoral education in America needs to undergo a paradigm shift so that it better serves the needs of our students and their prospective employers," Nerad says.  "We have done an excellent job providing students with in-depth knowledge of their fields and the ability to do research.  But we have much work in front of us if these highly skilled individuals are to realize their potential in positions both within academia and in society at large."