What happens to PhDs?
Written by Ai Takeuchi on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 10:01
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I have been reading this book titled “Highly-Educated Working Poor - Graduate School as a Manufacturer of Part-timers ” (written in Japanese). Sounds pessimistic? Yep, this is a very pessimistic book, indeed.
Pessimistic it may be, the book conveys the critical truth about post PhD lives in my country. In Japan, a lot of new graduate schools were established around the time all the national university became semi-privatized in 2004. It was a part of the government policy along with the privatization to increase the number of graduate schools. Consequently, there have been more and more graduates with higher degrees. However, the author of the book claims that the society is not ready to utilize so many MAs, MSs, and especially PhDs.
This book also reminded me of a website called “A Village of One-hundred Doctors” that I recently came across (also in Japanese). According to this website:
Of 100 new Doctors,
16 are MDs (medical doctors)
14 become professors
20 become post doctoral fellows (postdocs)
8 become company workers
11 become civil service employees
7 completely changes their areas of specialization
16 are unemployed
And the rest 8 go MISSING!!!
Is this depressing or what?! Oh this is not a world average - this is a Japanese case, if that makes you non-Japanese people feel better.
OK, enough of this bleak story. I will write something more positive tomorrow, I promise.
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