Job Placement Rates for new PhDs -- Social Sciences

[Cheerful]

Social scientists are chatting about this new report on job placement rates for political science PhDs on the market in 2017-2018.

Only 1 in 4 on the market obtained a tenure-track placement.  1 in 5 obtained a postdoc, 1 in 5 obtained "academic, non-tenure-track."  See Table 1.

Post-docs are increasing.  From report:  "Researchers have noted, particularly in the natural sciences, the process of hiring post-doctoral positions has been shown to be less transparent, and less equitable....Some researchers acknowledge they are less likely to even publicly post open post-doctoral positions, and rather rely on informal networks to fill open positions with new PhDs."

https://www.apsanet.org/Portals/54/APSA%20Files/Data%20Reports/Employment%20Data/Graduate_Placement_Report_2017-2018_FINAL.pdf?ver=2019-06-20-144103-220

All national academic associations should produce annual reports like this and PhD seekers should review the relevant data.

[spork]

This kind of report is at least twenty years overdue.

[Parasaurolophus]

All national academic associations should produce annual reports like this and PhD seekers should review the relevant data.

And all PhD-granting departments should make their placement information readily and publicly available, yeah.


My field has been doing this for a while now (starting ~15 years ago; we're now at the point where almost everyone posts this information, and where the field's main association collects this and other data), and a number of different data-collection efforts have grown up around it. It's been really important in changing the conversations we have over the job market, and in opening everyone's eyes.