Tag Archives: Eurodoc

Major survey of PhD students in Europe sheds light on working life

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A survey of more than 7,500 PhD students from 12 European countries has highlighted the variety of doctoral experiences found across the continent.

There is significant variation in whether or not students receive a salary or scholarship while working on their PhD, with almost all respondents from Norway receiving funding compared with just over half of those in Austria.

The Eurodoc survey, published on 30 September, also reveals striking data related to gender issues and family life. Men were more likely than women to believe their gender would be a disadvantage in their academic career, while students in several supposedly ‘family-friendly’ countries reported strong pressure to delay having children, or to avoid taking parental leave if they do.

We’ve outlined some of the key findings below — have a read and let us know what you think.

The 12 countries featured in the survey were Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, and the majority of respondents were aged between 26 and 35.

Funding

The proportion of PhD students receiving a salary or scholarship varied significantly: 54% received funding in Austria, compared with 76% in Germany and 82% in France. Norway scored highest, with 98% of female students and 96% of male students receiving an income. When asked whether the level of funding met living costs, over 40% of students in the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said it did to a very high extent, compared with fewer than 10% in Croatia, Portugal and Spain.

Family life

PhD students in Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands are more likely to be single or not living with their partner: one-third or more compared with around one-fifth in the other countries. In most countries, fewer than one-quarter of students have children — the exceptions were Norway, where 40% have children, Sweden (31%) and Finland (30%).

Awareness of the right to parental leave varied hugely across the countries surveyed — just 1% of female PhD students in Croatia said they didn’t know whether they had the right to maternity leave (99% said they did have the right), compared with 32% in Austria and 31% in Germany.

Surprisingly, some of the countries with reputations for being particularly ‘family-friendly’ did not score well on family-related issues. More than 50% of respondents in Sweden, Norway and Finland said they are strongly discouraged from taking parental leave, compared with 18% in Spain, 30% in Germany and 34% in France. The pressure to delay having children in the first place also seems to be particularly high in the Nordic countries polled: over 70% of men and 50% of women in Sweden, Norway and Finland said they felt a great deal of pressure to postpone having children, compared with 28% of men and 16% of women in Spain and 44% of men and 32% of women in Germany.

Impact of gender on career prospects

According to the survey, male students were more likely than female students to feel that their gender will hold them back in academia. The proportion of men who said they were very disadvantaged in their academic career because of their gender ranged from 77% to 91% across the countries surveyed, compared with 36% to 61% of women.

Work experience and employment status

The highest number of PhD students who said they had no contract was in Austria (25%), compared with 17% in Germany, 12% in France and just 1% in Norway.

Students also reported differing levels of work experience between their previous degree and the beginning of their doctoral research. Around 68% of PhD students in France have none, compared with just 25% in Norway.

Productivity

In Germany, 33% of respondents said they had published at least one peer-reviewed article in an international journal so far, compared with 64% in Croatia. In the latter country, 15% of respondents said they had published five or more articles, compared with 4% in France and 2% in Germany.

Although over 40% of respondents in all countries bar Slovenia said they spend more than 21 hours a week on research related to their thesis or dissertation, around one-quarter said they don’t spend any time actually writing it. Students in France reported the highest administrative burden, with almost half saying they spend more than 21 hours a week on admin, compared with 33% in Norway and 23% in Slovenia.

Students in Finland were most likely to have been involved in writing grant proposals, with 75% reporting they had contributed compared with 32% in the Netherlands and 35% in France.

Mobility

In the majority of countries surveyed, less than half of respondents had studied abroad before starting their doctorate. Researchers in Spain and France were most likely to continue their career abroad after finishing their doctorate, and the most common reason given for wanting to work abroad was improved career prospects.

Have your say

What do you think about these findings? How do they compare to your experience? Let us know your thoughts below.

Are long working hours inevitable for postdocs?

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More than half of postdocs surveyed work at least 50 hours per week and one quarter work at least 60 hours per week.

By comparison, an employee in the United Kingdom works around 37 hours per week on average, while in France this figure is 38 hours (ref). In the United States the average working week of a private, non-farm employee is just over 34 hours long (ref).

Just 2.5% of postdocs work part-time, compared with around a quarter of employees in the United Kingdom and a sixth of employees in the United States (ref).

While the poll of visitors to naturejobs.com is not the most rigorous of measures, it highlights the long-hours culture that many postdocs are faced with. So are long hours inevitable, and what can you do if struggling with your workload?

Liliya Bondareva, a board member of Eurodoc, an organization that supports PhD students, postdocs and junior researchers throughout Europe and is based in Brussels, is not surprised by our poll results. “A postdoc position implies longer hours for a number of reasons,” she says. Complex research combined with limited funding, tight timescales and a need to publish regularly all pile on the pressure. “Working hours often include doing research, teaching, supervision and increasingly administration,” she adds.

Rob Hardwick, co-chair of the UK Research Staff Association (UKRSA) and a postdoc at the University of Leicester, agrees work outside the lab can take up a significant amount of time and deserves more formal recognition. “It is easy to see how the hours put in by the average postdoc soon stack up,” he says.

Sometimes it’s the nature of the work in the lab that means anti-social hours are unavoidable — Bondareva cites an example of a UK postdoc who typically remains in the lab until past midnight when monitoring the behaviour of cells.

A lack of employment rights exacerbates the issue in some countries, a situation that support organisations are campaigning to change. In France, the CJC (Young Researchers Confederation) is pushing to relabel postdocs as temporary research workers to highlight their contractual plights, according to spokesman François Briatte: “Private companies treat [postdocs] as ‘late-stage students’ and consequently offer wages and positions that would correspond to much lower levels of qualification.”

Contracts and union representation can offer some degree of protection. In August 2010, postdocs at the University of California formed a union and agreed a contract with the university hierarchy. While the deal says work schedules must be reasonable, there is no upper limit set on hours. “We want postdocs to be flexible about their work schedule,” says union president Xiaoqing Cao, adding that postdocs facing an unreasonable workload can file a grievance since the contract was put in place.

However, Cao says that postdocs should expect to work longer-than-average hours: “I was told to be prepared to work at least 50 hours per week when I became a postdoc. If we want to move forward with our careers, we have to work hard.” Hardwick agrees, saying long working weeks are inevitable for ambitious postdocs: “We put in the hours we do because it is highly competitive out there.”

Hardwick advises postdocs struggling with their workload to tell their supervisors or mentors and get the issue discussed at departmental committees and meetings so senior staff are aware there is a problem. “When you get to department-head level you don’t always remember what it was like to be a postdoc,” he says.

Another tactic to mitigate problems with long working hours is to try to prevent them arising in the first place. Bondareva advises postdocs applying for a position to investigate the set-up of the project, such as checking whether other institutes allow more time for similar projects and whether staff in administrative positions are also doing research, which could be a sign of overworked researchers. She also suggests checking the blogs and social media outputs of those already in similar postdoc positions: “Do they seem to have a healthy work-life balance? Do they blog a lot about their work? Is it only about work?”

Failing that, Bondareva advises postdocs under pressure to take strength from their initial motivation for becoming a researcher: “Think about the reason you are doing it, and if the reason is compelling enough, remind yourself about [it] every day.”

Have your say

Should postdocs expect to work longer-than-average hours? Can you share any tips on coping with a heavy workload? Have you been successful in improving your work-life balance as a postdoc? Share your thoughts and experiences below.