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Abstract
This paper analyses the determining factors of PhDs' career success. Earnings have been used as an objective measure, and a subjective measure of success was constructed based on the individuals' assessments of broader aspects of their job position. When analysing the data by field of knowledge and gender, it was found that males and PhD holders in the field of sciences achieve greater career success in terms of earnings. However, the theory of the glass ceiling does not appear to apply. On the basis of a subjective measure of career success, on the other hand, it is women and PhD holders in humanities and social sciences that are more successful. Regardless of the measure of success used, the most important determining factor in career success is job satisfaction, thus reinforcing the theory that PhD holders are a group of workers with a more complex conception of career success.
Acknowledgements
This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project ECO2008-03468. The authors would like to thank the INE (National Statistics Institute) for having provided us with the database 2006 Survey on Human Resources in Science and Technology.
Notes
1. See Auriol Citation(2007) for a previous study with similar content, but for only seven OECD countries.
2. The questions are the same as those asked by the OECD in the CDH project. The answers to the question ‘Level of satisfaction in relation to job economic benefits’ have not been taken into account due to their ambiguity.
3. Some examples of subjective and objective measures proposed in the standard literature can be found in Sturges Citation(1999), Boudreau, Boswell, and Judge Citation(2001), Arthur, Khapova, and Wilderom Citation(2005), Schomburg Citation(2007) and Mora Citation(2008), in which we find objective aspects such as earnings, position and type of contract, and subjective aspects such as the level of satisfaction with work, status and use of knowledge.
4. The Survey on Human Resources in Science and Technology 2006 distinguishes between 42 fields of knowledge.
5. With this same dataset, Canal and Rodríguez Citation(2012) analyse these differences in depth, finding that science PhDs have an advantage in terms of salaries.
6. In this case, linear discrete choice models are an alternative for the estimation. However, there are some statistical problems with this method: the error term is heteroskedastic and does not take into account that the success variable is bounded, estimation is more complex, and the results are similar to OLS (Ahn and García Citation2004).
7. Judge et al. Citation(2010) use meta-analysis to estimate the population correlation between pay level and measures of pay and job satisfaction. The results suggest that pay level is only marginally related to satisfaction.
8. This positive sign is the opposite of that predicted in the literature, and possibly reflects extra income earned by individuals who have a job for which their qualifications exceed the minimum needed to carry out that job.
9. Due to its specific characteristics, an NPI, based on its altruistic philosophy, is completely different from the rest of public and private firms, as it does not charge any fees for the professional services which are its corporate purpose. This purpose is not related to any activity supporting its financing, which is characterized by independence between user and the financial backer.
10. The National Statistical Institute provides data on trends in the number of new entrants to university by sex and field of knowledge in Spain.
11. The results of the estimations are available to readers on request.
12. See Mora Citation(2001) for a complete summary of the existing system in Spain for evaluating the academic and research activities of university teachers.