The mismatch continues between PhD holders and their career prospects
New expert report from the Council of Canadian Academies finds a growing number of doctoral graduates in Canada is having trouble transitioning to the labour market.
Canada has an academic labour mismatch problem: more people than ever graduate with PhDs, but after completing these intensive programs they often face limited career prospects in academia and beyond. This represents a significant untapped source of talent for the country.
“Students go into PhD studies for various reasons. They tend to be passionate about their field of study. They also want to use their knowledge and their training and their passion to contribute,” says Elizabeth Cannon, president emerita of the University of Calgary.
To better understand the challenges PhD students face in transitioning to the labour market, the Council of Canadian Academies convened a 12-member expert panel in 2019 headed by Dr. Cannon. The CCA was responding to a request from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. The resulting 220-page report, Degrees of Success, was released on January 26.
PhD programs cost money for governments, universities and students. Students invest not just financially, but also in terms of their time, putting in four to six years on average to complete their programs. Yet, after graduation, they often end up as part-time instructors vying for limited tenure-track positions, unsure of how to market their skills in the non-academic job market.
This situation “is ripe for dialogue. It’s ripe for reform,” says panel member Bryan Gopaul, an assistant professor at the Warner School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester who hails from Canada and researches the experiences of graduate students. He notes that the PhD has been around for centuries and has managed to stay the same in many ways while also shifting over time – and may need to change again to stay relevant.
The number of people graduating with PhDs in Canada has been increasing at a fairly steady rate since 2002. In that year, according to Statistics Canada, 3,723 students graduated from PhD or equivalent programs across the country. By 2017 the number had more than doubled, reaching nearly 8,000. Yet the number of tenure-stream professors in Canada has remained relatively constant since 2009, at around 41,000 in any given year.
The combination of increased PhD holders and a declining number of new tenure-track positions has led to greater competition for fewer jobs. What’s more, Canadian graduates are competing with graduates from all over the world for a diminishing number of positions.
“Traditionally, PhDs were seen, and still are seen, as the pathway to a tenure-track academic career, and what the report shows is that the pathway is not as large as it has been,” says Dr. Cannon. According to the report, about 19 percent of PhD holders working in Canada hold tenured or tenure-track faculty jobs. The rest end up in a range of positions. They sometimes serve as contract lecturers, a modestly paid and precarious career path.
“The private sector has not increased its capacity to take on these additional PhD grads, who could use their skills and talents to contribute to the economy,” says Dr. Cannon. The same is not the case in other countries, she says, notably Australia and the U.S., which graduate more PhDs, many of whom companies eagerly hire.
In Canada, graduate supervisors may discourage their students from exploring jobs outside universities. Dwayne Benjamin, a professor in the department of economics and vice-dean, graduate education, in the faculty of arts and science at the University of Toronto, says that’s seldom done intentionally. “Professors take great pride in the outcomes of their students. They know a lot about the academic labour market, but not much about jobs outside universities. And there’s a sense that, with PhD students, you’re [expected] to be the next generation of scholars,” he says.
Some PhD programs link well to non-academic jobs, the panel notes. Business PhDs are the top earners five years after graduation. They are followed by PhD graduates in engineering, mathematics and computer science, health, and education, all of whom have similar earnings. The lowest earners are PhD graduates in humanities and sciences. The differences in earnings are significant, the report notes, with PhD graduates in business earning over 80 percent more than those in humanities and sciences at the five-year mark.
Dr. Benjamin says that some sectors embrace PhD graduates because the employers in these sectors understand the value of their skills. “Computer science does well, evolutionary biology grads don’t do as well,” he says. Physics grads often get scooped up by Bay Street firms keen to utilize their complex math skills. “Some degrees have connections to jobs, and it varies.”
Discrimination and unconscious bias also can impact PhD holders. Men earn 19 percent more than women five years after finishing their doctoral degrees, while woman are more likely to be unemployed or working part-time. There are fewer racialized students at the highest levels of education – those with disabilities also struggle – with few mentors and colleagues facing similar challenges, leading to feelings of isolation. In particular, Indigenous students feel the burden of so-called tokenism, getting frequent requests to serve on panels and committees, which take time away from their research and studies.
While taking an advanced degree entails the honing of many important skills, a PhD doesn’t prep students for the work world, plus grads don’t realize what employable skills they actually have. The report explores how some PhDs don’t even learn how to succeed in academia – the brightest researchers, for instance, often earn grants that permit them to skip serving as teaching assistants, so they may never learn vital teaching skills.
While much of the data look dismal, Dr. Cannon says universities have made changes to better link PhD students and work. “It’s not as if institutions are standing still,” she says. The report devotes a chapter to promising initiatives such as mentorship, professional development and work-integrated learning programs.
The report draws no conclusions nor makes recommendations – and does not answer the big question of whether or not Canada graduates too many PhDs – but offers a data-driven picture of what’s going on. “The report, in one hub, pulls all this information together. It supports some really comprehensive conversations grounded in strong research and findings,” says Dr. Gopaul. “I think the report highlights how complex it all is, and highlights that there are so many factors.”
Dr. Cannon says the fate of advanced-degree holders impacts innovation and the economy at an important level, so the debate “I think is very timely and very important to the future of this country.”
While not clear what effective changes to the PhD might look like, Dr. Benjamin says any shift related to the labour market entails a philosophical shift. “This is another dimension of how universities are changing away from being about the pure pursuit of knowledge.”
The report’s key findings
- The number of PhD graduates in Canada is growing while the number of open tenure-track positions is stagnant or declining.
- Non-academic sectors have not significantly increased their uptake of PhD graduates.
- The labour market outcomes for PhDs vary significantly by gender and discipline, and the economic return of a PhD is lower for younger graduates compared to PhDs in general.
- Academic culture can support or hinder the transition of PhDs to the labour market.
- PhD graduates may not be aware of the skills and abilities they could bring to a future employer, or there may be a mismatch between the capabilities desired by employers and those gained by PhD graduates during their studies.
- PhD graduates from Canadian institutions are presented with the opportunity, or in some cases necessity, of seeking employment outside Canada following their studies.
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