An Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Academic Occupation Orientation of PhD Graduates

Abstract

Based on questionnaire survey data of recent PhD graduates, a quantitative analysis of the occupational orientation of Chinese PhD students engaged in academic research and the influencing factors is performed. The results show that factors such as gender, academic interest, and family background have a significant impact on PhD students’ academic occupational orientation. PhD students who are women, have strong academic interests, and have lower family birth status are more willing to do academic research work. In the end, on the basis of the data analysis, the authors offer policy recommendations on how to encourage more outstanding talents to devote themselves to academic research.

Keywords:

• academic
• influencing factors
• occupation orientation
• PhD graduates

Notes

Notes

1 High-level white collar includes senior professionals, administrators, officials, and businesspeople; mid-level white collar includes low-level professionals, administrators, and officials and senior technicians and managers; low-level white collar includes administrative office workers and other routine non–physical labor employees and the self-employed; the physical labor level includes skilled workers, semiskilled workers, service physical laborers, peasants, and the unemployed.

2 For the specific contents of Wu Shulian’s rank, see http://edu.sina.com.con/focus/utop.html.

3 The school rank variable did not have a significant effect, but it was still incorporated into the model because school rank is a variable we are interest in and hope to explore whether there are differences in the academic orientations of graduates from schools with different ranks. We did not completely build our model based on significance, we also considered the degree of our interest in the variables.