Skip to main content
NCBI home page
F1000Research logoLink to F1000Research
. 2017 Sep 5;6:1642. [Version 1] doi: 10.12688/f1000research.12538.1

The unhappy postdoc: a survey based study

Amir Grinstein 1,2,a, Roi Treister 3,4
PMCID: PMC5958315  PMID: 29946421

Abstract

Background: The emerging public discourse about the “broken” postdoc system is mostly conceptual. The current work offers an attempt to quantify postdocs’ perceptions, goals, and well-being.

Methods: A survey of 190 postdocs in North America.

Results: This article first reveals a surprisingly unhappy postdoc community with low satisfaction with life scores. Second, it demonstrates how over the course of the fellowship many postdocs lose interest in the goal of pursuing a tenure track academic position (~20%) or in recommending the postdoc track to others (~30%). Finally, we find that among a large number of factors that can enhance satisfaction with life for postdocs (e.g., publication productivity, resources available to them) only one factor stood out as significant: the degree to which atmosphere in the lab is pleasant and collegial.

Conclusions: Our findings can stimulate policy, managerial, and career development improvements in the context of the postdoc system.

Keywords: Postdoc, post-doctorate, well-being, academic career

Introduction

Post-doctorate fellows (i.e. postdocs) are a major force in advancing scientific research, and often are the driving force behind successful labs, especially in the bio-medical area. Not only the sheer number of postdocs is on the rise – the number of postdocs has tripled since 1979 ( Gould, 2015) – but also their research projects require heavier funding ( Davis, 2009; Xuhong, 2013). A common assumption is that PhDs pursue a postdoc position in an academic research institution to enhance their research skills and reputation, which in turn increase their chances of obtaining the ultimate goal: a tenure track academic appointment. While this is a worthy goal to pursue, and there is no doubt that a postdoc position is often key for a future academic appointment, there are growing concerns that the postdoc system is broken and unsustainable ( Alberts et al., 2014; Gould, 2015). Such concerns are mostly heard from postdocs ( Powell, 2015; Smaglik, 2016). Conversely, the academic establishment benefits from maintaining the status quo because the supply of skilled employees like postdocs – that are relatively non-costly and require minimal training and supervision – is highly warranted ( Smaglik, 2016). However, the benefits from a postdoc career for the postdocs themselves are becoming much less evident. Under unstable economic conditions tenure track academic appointments become tremendously difficult to obtain. Recent evidence from the UK, for example, suggests that of 100 science PhD graduates, about 30 will go on to postdoc research, but just 4 will secure permanent academic posts with a significant research component ( Nature editorial, 2014). In the US, the situation is slightly better: 65% of all PhD holders follow the postdoc path but only 15–20% of those gain a tenure track position ( Gould, 2015). Moreover, postdocs that are not able to achieve an academic appointment often become over-qualified for industry positions while losing alternative higher compensation (salaries in the industry) and often putting their personal life (marriage, kids) on hold.

It takes between 12–18 years of academic training to get into the entry level of an academic tenure track position ( Gould, 2015). This very long training process has economic, social, and individual well-being costs. These heavy costs are often complemented with the significant uncertainty surrounding the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track academic appointment. Overall therefore, it might be very useful for potential postdocs to develop a more critical view of the traditional academic postdoc track and of their career choices after completing their PhD.

While discussions of the postdoc reality have been attracting growing attention (e.g., Alberts et al., 2014; Gould, 2013; Powell, 2015; Smaglik, 2016), they have mostly focused on the policy level and lacked empirical assessments at the individual postdoc level. Our aim is to empirically study the perspective of postdocs, to better understand their goals and perceptions, and to be able to promote evidence-based career choices by PhDs considering the postdoc path. We follow recent efforts such as the postdocs survey conducted by Gibbs et al. (2015). Specifically, we pose, at the individual level, the following unanswered research questions:

Given the complex reality postdocs face today

  • (1)

    How satisfied are current postdocs?

  • (2)

    How likely are they to change – over the course of their fellowship – their key career goal of (typically) obtaining a tenure track appointment?

Methods

To answer our research questions, we conducted a survey of postdocs in North America, mostly in the bio-medical and physical sciences. We emailed the survey to 29 leading postdoc associations in North America (e.g., National Postdocs Association, Rockefeller Postdocs Association, Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association) asking them to distribute it among their members. Overall we generated responses from 190 postdocs 1. Respondents’ anonymity was kept. The majority of respondents were positioned in the U.S, with 6 participants from Europe, Asia and Africa 2. Table 1 summarizes key characteristics of the surveyed postdocs. The survey, data, and list of postdoc associations targeted can be found as a supplementary files ( Dataset 1, Supplementary file 1, Supplementary file 2).

Survey response

A data set including the response of 190 North American postdocs.

Copyright: © 2017 Grinstein A and Treister R

Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

Click here for additional data file. (30.4KB, tgz)

Table 1. Key characteristics of the surveyed postdocs.

Different n are due to missing values. Percentages are of valid cases.

# of
Postdocs
fellowships		 Duration
of postdoc
(years)		 # of
publications		 Discipline Age Gender
One        70.0% ≤1         21.3% 0             2.2% Biology                           43.6% <30          9.5% Female        55.1%
Two        26.3% 2–4        50.0% 1–3         12.4% Neuroscience                  21.8% 30–39        78.3% Male           44.9%
Three        3.2% 5–8        24.1% 4–10        50.6% Medicine                        10.9% 40–49        11.5%
Four         0.5% >8           4.7% >10           34.8% Engineering                      4.2% >50          0.7%
Chemistry                        3.0%  
Environmental science     1.2%  
Physics                           0.6%  
Mathematics                   0.6%  
Statistics                         0.6%
Other                             13.5%  
n 190 178 178 165 148 147
Min-Max 1–4 0.5–18 0–65 - 27–52 -
Mean 1.34 3.38 9.26 - 34.89 -
Open in a new tab

In the survey we were especially interested in collecting data regarding satisfaction levels of postdocs as well as their career goals dynamics while accounting for variety of factors that may impact these outcomes such as number of publications and atmosphere in the lab.

Results

A first set of findings suggests that postdocs are far from being satisfied with their current situation in life with a mean of 4.47 (SD=1.46). Satisfaction was quantified by five items, each reported on a 1–7 scale, based on the established Diener et al.’s (1985) scale; α=.90: “In most ways my life is close to my ideal,” “The conditions of my life are excellent,” “I am satisfied with my life,” “So far I have gotten the important things I want in life,” “If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing”. Further, 30% of participants demonstrate lower than the median (=4) satisfaction levels. Considering that the established research using the same satisfaction scale typically suggests a positive bias of people when asked about satisfaction with life ( Abdallah et al., 2009; Diener et al., 1985), our results demonstrate a surprisingly low well-being among people that are one step away from their “dream” appointment position and are typically already affiliated with a top-tier academic affiliation. Further, prior work on satisfaction with life of other type of skilled trainees that are roughly at the same age group (e.g., medical students) report much higher satisfaction levels (not lower than 5.2 (e.g., Kjeldstadli et al., 2006; Samaranayake & Fernando, 2011). Although a less “clean” comparison, it is surprising to find that the postdocs in our sample are less content than people in many poor, underdeveloped countries according to a comparable analysis of people’s satisfaction with life across countries ( Figure 1; adapted from Abdallah et al., 2009) 3. Further, the postdocs fall significantly behind the general US population, where many postdocs reside.

Figure 1. A map demonstrating satisfaction with life levels across the world, including the relatively low satisfaction with life of postdocs in North America.

Figure 1.

Open in a new tab

Adapted from Abdallah et al. (2009).

Interestingly, out of a list of potential explanatory variables of satisfaction with life among postdocs – including postdocs’ demographic characteristics (age, gender), personal characteristics (number of postdocs, number of publications, years in postdoc, discipline), publication productivity (number of publications, number of publications as a first author, number of publications based on their postdoc as first authors or in general), PI characteristics (number of publications, frequent interaction of the postdocs with the PI), and lab characteristics (value of equipment, number of postdocs) – only one factor showed significant relationship with satisfaction with life: atmosphere in the lab (r=.247, p=.002). This measure included five items on a 1–7 scale, inspired by Moos’ (2008) Work Environment Scale’s Peer Cohesion sub-dimension aiming to understand how friendly and supportive employees are to each other (α=.80 “The atmosphere in the lab is/was very pleasant,” “I am/was happy to go to work in the morning,” “I view/viewed my lab colleagues as friends,” “I often have/had social interactions with my lab colleagues outside the lab,” “I often collaborate/collaborated on joint projects with my lab colleagues”).

A key consequence of such lack of satisfaction is represented in participants’ responses to a question wondering whether the postdocs will likely to recommend the postdoc track to other who considering it. Only 28.4% “agreed” or “definitely agreed” to recommend the postdoc path to others. Less than a third.

Another finding is that many postdocs are re-considering or re-considered their career goals during their fellowship. We asked participants to share with us their main career goal when starting their postdoc and also at the point of the survey. Options included (a) university faculty with an emphasis on teaching, (b) university faculty with an emphasis on research, (c) government job with an emphasis on R&D, (d) job in an established firm with an emphasis on R&D, (e) job in a start-up with an emphasis on R&D or (f) other. The results (summarized in Figure 2) shows a shift from a goal focusing on academic tenure track position to other goals – mostly industry positions. In our sample, 71.3% of the postdocs began their fellowship with the goal of pursuing a tenure track academic position. When the survey was conducted only 50% maintained a similar career goal. The key career change involves a focus on the industry (established R&D company or a start up) – from 9% and 3%, to 18% and 8%, respectively.

Figure 2. Postdocs career goal change over the span of their fellowship.

Figure 2.

Open in a new tab

Most striking is the finding that 71.3% of the surveyed postdocs began their fellowship with the goal of pursuing a tenure track academic position but when the survey was conducted only 50% maintained this career goal.

Discussion

Many postdocs are facing a well-being paradox. On the one hand, a postdoc position is a huge step towards achieving many postdocs’ central goal of obtaining a tenure track appointment. On the other hand, however, the growing realization that these positions are scarce than ever before, as well as the long, frustrating, and not always rewarding postdoc journey significantly damages the well-being and satisfaction of many postdocs.

Our empirical analysis is a valuable first step in documenting and reflecting on the notion of the well-being paradox of postdocs. Unhappy postdocs is not a good recipe for sustainable success of the postdoc system and for advancing top-tier scientific work. This means – from the perspective of policy makers, university administration, and lab leaders – that there is value in better understanding and catering to the well-being and needs of individual postdocs. Our finding that a key aspect of postdocs’ satisfaction with life involves a positive atmosphere in the lab attest to the importance of “soft”, not-science related factors that are essentials to the sustainability of a successful postdoc system. Such insight can help lab leaders in postdoc recruitment efforts and in optimizing the postdoc experience.

Further, from the perspective of postdocs and prospective postdocs (mostly PhDs), they should consider adopting a more critical view of the traditional academic postdoc track. This may lead to seriously considering all available career options including an industry position following the PhD, an industry postdoc, or a combined academic-industry postdoc. A recent finding that even after achieving a tenure-track academic position, many assistant professors are unhappy ( Nature editorial, 2016), could be another catalysts for postdocs to re-think their career goals. Overall, these trends may require the industry to be more proactive in establishing postdoc positions while requiring the academic system to be more open and flexible with respect to non-academic postdocs and collaboration with the industry.

Overall, our work helps to better understand the well-being of postdocs and its drivers. It provides empirical support to the idea that the current postdoc system is broken and that postdocs are paying a price in well-being terms. Any successful change in the postdoc system would need to enhance postdocs’ well-being and it is our hope that our findings stimulate policy, managerial, and career development improvements that can be pursued.

Data availability

The data referenced by this article are under copyright with the following copyright statement: Copyright: © 2017 Grinstein A and Treister R

Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Dataset 1

Survey Response: A dataset including the response of 190 North American postdocs. 10.5256/f1000research.12538.d176428 ( Grinstein & Treister, 2017)

Ethics and consent

The first author’s university ethics committee (Northeastern University’s Institutional Review Board) has approved the project “The Unhappy Postdoc” (IRB#: 15-05-01). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Notes

1Unfortunately we did not get access to the associations’ member lists or to information about them so we lack data on the overall number of survey invitations sent.

2These 6 postdocs where part of the associations and have recently moved back to their home country.

3To be compatible with Abdallah et al.’s (2009) map, we transformed our 1–7 satisfaction with life scale to a 1–10 scale, on which the surveyed postdocs demonstrate a 6.1 satisfaction with life score.

Acknowledgment

We are thankful for a postdoc that helped us with crafting the idea and executing the research but decided to remain anonymous due to the potential negative consequences arising from a study highlighting the “broken system” s/he is part of.

Funding Statement

The study was self-funded

[version 1; referees: 4 approved with reservations]

Supplementary Material

Supplementary file 1: A survey that was distributed among 190 North American postdocs.

Click here for additional data file. (227.6KB, tgz)

Supplementary file 2: List of postdoc associations targeted legend: a list of 29 central postdoc associations in North America that helped distribute the survey among their members.

Click here for additional data file. (11.5KB, tgz)

References

  1. Abdallah S, Thompson S, Michaelson J, et al. : The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why Good Lives Don’t Have to Cost the Earth. London: nef (the new economics foundation).2009. Reference Source [Google Scholar]
  2. Alberts B, Kirschner MW, Tilghman S, et al. : Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws. 2014;111(16):5773–5777. 10.1073/pnas.1404402111 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Davis G: Improving the Postdoctoral Experience: An Empirical Approach.In “Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment”. R. B. Freeman and D. L. Goroff, editors, NBER, Chapter URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c11619.2009;99–127. 10.7208/chicago/9780226261904.003.0004 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  4. Diener E, Emmons RA, Larsen RJ, et al. : The Satisfaction With Life Scale. 1985;49(1):71–75. 10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Editorial: Harsh reality. 2014;516(7529):7–8. 10.1038/516007b [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Editorial: Young researchers thrive in life after academia. 2016;537(7622):585. 10.1038/537585a [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Gibbs KD, Jr, McGready J, Griffin K: Career Development among American Biomedical Postdocs. 2015;14(4):ar44. 10.1187/cbe.15-03-0075 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Gould J: How to build a better PhD. 2015;528(7580):22–25. 10.1038/528022a [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Grinstein A, Treister R: Dataset 1 in: The unhappy postdoc: a survey based study. 2017. Data Source [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Kjeldstadli K, Tyssen R, Finset A, et al. : Life satisfaction and resilience in medical school--a six-year longitudinal, nationwide and comparative study. 2006;6(1):48. 10.1186/1472-6920-6-48 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Moos R: Work Environment Scale Manual. (4th ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Mind Garden, Inc.2008. Reference Source [Google Scholar]
  12. Powell K: The future of the postdoc. 2015;520(7546):144–147. 10.1038/520144a [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Samaranayake CB, Fernando AT: Satisfaction with Life and Depression among Medical Students in Auckland, New Zealand. 2011;124(1341):12–17. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Smaglik P: Activism: Frustrated postdocs rise up. 2016;530(7591):505–506. 10.1038/nj7591-505a [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Xuhong S: The Impacts of Postdoctoral Training on Scientists’ Academic Employment. 2013;84(2):239–265. 10.2139/ssrn.1438146 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
F1000Res. 2017 Oct 16. doi: 10.5256/f1000research.13576.r26675

Referee response for version 1

Jennifer M Miller 1

This review will focus a critical eye on three issues, integration with existing literature, survey methodology, and use of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). The review then acknowledges some points of agreement and support for the authors and ultimately recommends significant revision for publication, with some reservations.

The abstract begins with the implication that the public discourse about postdocs is not informed by empirical work. The implication that empirical work is missing is a red flag to me whenever I encounter it, not only when it is my own empirical work that is being overlooked. Yet I do believe that our paper (Miller & Feldman, 2015) that uses the Science and Engineering PhD and Postdoc Survey (SEPPS) conducted by Sauermann and Roach to study dissatisfaction with postdoc appointments could have informed the design and interpretation of this study. So at the risk of being a caricature of reviewers who plug their own work, I will begin by pointing the authors toward this paper, which also contains a summary of prior research on postdoc satisfaction. The Scaffidi and Berman (2011) paper is also very relevant to the topic.

I was pleased to see that the authors had cited Davis’s 2009 chapter analyzing the Sigma Xi survey of postdocs, as this has been some of the most influential empirical work on the postdoc experience. As a methodological step to avoid this type of disconnect from prior literature, I would recommend the practice of using Google Scholar’s “cited by” feature to look at the studies that have cited this chapter. It will connect the authors to even more recent and relevant empirical work.

Further review of existing literature would also have been helpful to the authors in their use of the SWLS. Diener and colleagues have published a number of subsequent review articles (including but not limited to Diener & Pavot 1993 and Pavot & Diener 2008), but this study relies on the original 1985 paper.

The review will now turn to issues of interpretation related to the survey data and measurement scales.

Interpretation of the survey data was complicated by the absence of a correlation table. It was not entirely clear, but it appears that conclusions are drawn from correlations, rather than regression analyses that more carefully model the relationship to satisfaction by including control variables. I recommend the authors clearly explain the analyses performed and provide a correlation table.

I have two concerns regarding the representativeness of the sample. First, the authors say the survey was distributed by postdoc associations to their members. Postdoc associations do not necessarily include all postdocs at an institution and often serve as agents of change, sometimes including formal unionization efforts. This is a limitation that would discourage me from drawing policy conclusions from the study. Postdoc association membership lists may overrepresent dissatisfied postdocs. Of course, it is also possible that at least some postdoc associations have a broader mailing list. It is even possible that not all postdoc associations distributed the survey at all. With only 29 associations, it seems likely it would be feasible to contact them to confirm distribution and to give some consideration to their mission statements.

Second, in analyzing survey data, it is a questionable choice to include only complete cases. Various techniques for imputation allow the researchers to avoid discarding the valuable data from incomplete cases. The fact that age and gender were missing from over 20% of cases, while other variables were provided more completely, suggests that there may be some bias introduced by discarding missing data. Response bias also tends to overrepresent those with strong feelings and opinions.

The likelihood for sample bias due to the reliance on postdoc associations is my main concern with the study as a whole. This cannot be remedied but can be acknowledged as an important limitation.

Comparison of postdocs’ SWLS scores with early studies of relevant populations was complicated by the fact that the authors report the mean (4.47 on a 1-7 scale), while apparently other studies tend to report the total scale score (5-35). On page 2, the authors refer to 4 as the median, when 4 is more accurately described as the midpoint of the scale. Diener & Pavot (1993) are careful to interpret findings relevant to their scale anchors. A mean of 4.47 indicates a neutral to slightly satisfied group.

But taking into account confidence intervals, it is not clear to me that the satisfaction of postdocs is significantly worse than that found by Diener & Pavot in 1993 for several groups of US college students. Given the cultural variation in reporting life satisfaction, the absence of nationality data also complicates interpretation of the scale (note the low satisfaction for Chinese students reported in the 1993 paper). Postdocs are a highly international group and nationality has been found to be relevant to satisfaction (Sabharwal & Corley 2009).

Figure 1 seemed especially problematic in terms of scale interpretation. This measurement seems to be on a different scale entirely, as it has a category >7, which would be impossible on a 1-7 scale.

The authors should review literature about and applications of the SWLS to relevant populations more thoroughly and contextualize their findings in clear, comparable terms.

Overall I did not find support for the claim that this survey showed surprisingly low levels of wellbeing.

I’d like to conclude with a few points of agreement with prior research. For example, we also found that satisfaction does typically decline the longer someone is a postdoc (Miller & Feldman 2015).

It is also not surprising that people lost interest in pursuing tenure-track academic appointments. If they did not lose interest, the competition for the relatively few available positions would be even more fierce, with perhaps even more stark disappointment among those not selected. Yet, while this competition has intensified, it is by no means new. Like entertainment and athletics, scientific careers function as tournaments (Freeman et al. 2001). I agree with the authors’ recommendation that doctoral students and postdocs would benefit from more awareness of the structure of the scientific labor market.

Prior research also supports the focus on improving the postdoc experience through interpersonal, lab-level interventions, rather than more tangible issues of pay and benefits (Miller & Feldman 2015; Scaffidi & Berman, 2011; Davis 2009). Research on postdoc satisfaction tends to identify the mentoring relationship and professional development as key to postdocs’ satisfaction.

In summary, I have some fairly strong methodological reservations about this paper. As presented, the findings of dissatisfaction do not seem particularly strong. There are reasons to question the role of sample bias in selecting for more dissatisfied postdocs. However, I could support publication of a revised version that better contextualizes the paper with existing research, acknowledges the activist role of postdoc associations and resulting potential for bias, better examines the potential for nonresponse bias and missing data, and provides careful comparisons with other studies using the SWLS.

Minor points

  1.  For policy-relevant research, it is useful to report the time frame during which the data were collected.

  2. Supplementary File 1 is described as having been distributed among 190 postdocs. In fact, it was completed by 190 postdocs and it is unknown to how many the survey was distributed. The NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering could provide an estimate of the number of postdocs at these institutions.

  3. I do not usually use SPSS, so was not able to examine the data file. For what is probably a fairly manageable dataset like this, it would be helpful to provide a flat text file in a format like .csv.

  4. Both supplementary files appear to link to the survey, not the list of postdoc associations.

  5. Paragraph 1, “warranted” seems like an odd word choice here.

I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.

References

  • 1. Davis.G: Improving the postdoctoral experience: An empirical approach. In Science and engineering careers in the United States: An analysis of markets and employment. .2009;99-127 Reference source
  • 2. Freeman R, Weinstein E, Marincola E, Rosenbaum J, Solomon F: Competition and careers in biosciences. .2001;294(5550) : 10.1126/science.1067477 2293-2294 10.1126/science.1067477 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3. Miller J.M, Feldman M.P: isolated in the Lab: examining Dissatisfaction with Postdoctoral Appointments. .2015;86(5) :697-724 Reference source [Google Scholar]
  • 4. Sabharwal M: Faculty job satisfaction across gender and discipline. .2009;46(3) :539-556 Reference source [Google Scholar]
  • 5. Scaffidi A.K: A positive postdoctoral experience is related to quality supervision and career mentoring, collaborations, networking and a nurturing research environment. .2011;62(6) :685 Reference source [Google Scholar]
  • 6. Pavot W: Review of the satisfaction with life scale. .1993;5(2) :164 Reference source [Google Scholar]
  • 7. Pavot W: The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. .2008;3(2) :137-152 Reference source [Google Scholar]
F1000Res. 2018 Apr 25.
Amir Grinstein 1

Referee 1

Jennifer M. Miller, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 

Approved with Reservations

This review will focus a critical eye on three issues, integration with existing literature, survey methodology, and use of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). The review then acknowledges some points of agreement and support for the authors and ultimately recommends significant revision for publication, with some reservations.

The abstract begins with the implication that the public discourse about postdocs is not informed by empirical work. The implication that empirical work is missing is a red flag to me  whenever I encounter it, not only when it is my own empirical work that is being overlooked. Yet I do believe that our paper (Miller & Feldman, 2015) that uses the Science and Engineering PhD and Postdoc Survey (SEPPS) conducted by Sauermann and Roach to study dissatisfaction with postdoc appointments could have informed the design and interpretation of this study. So at the risk of being a caricature of reviewers who plug their own work, I will begin by pointing the authors toward this paper, which also contains a summary of prior research on postdoc satisfaction. The Scaffidi and Berman (2011) paper is also very relevant to the topic.

I was pleased to see that the authors had cited Davis’s 2009 chapter analyzing the Sigma Xi survey of postdocs, as this has been some of the most influential empirical work on the postdoc experience. As a methodological step to avoid this type of disconnect from prior literature, I would recommend the practice of using Google Scholar’s “cited by” feature to look at the studies that have cited this chapter. It will connect the authors to even more recent and relevant empirical work.

Further review of existing literature would also have been helpful to the authors in their use of the SWLS. Diener and colleagues have published a number of subsequent review articles (including but not limited to Diener & Pavot 1993 and Pavot & Diener 2008), but this study relies on the original 1985 paper.

Reply: Thank you very much for directing us to highly relevant literature that we have overlooked. This is indeed an emerging and evolving area and we have now extended our literature search based on your guidance as well as integrated the above work into the revised manuscript.

The review will now turn to issues of interpretation related to the survey data and measurement scales.

Interpretation of the survey data was complicated by the absence of a correlation table. It was not entirely clear, but it appears that conclusions are drawn from correlations, rather than regression analyses that more carefully model the relationship to satisfaction by including control variables. I recommend the authors clearly explain the analyses performed and provide a correlation table.

Reply: We now include a correlation matrix. We also ran regression analysis on which we report in the revised version.

I have two concerns regarding the representativeness of the sample. First, the authors say the survey was distributed by postdoc associations  to their members. Postdoc associations do not necessarily include all postdocs at an institution and often serve as agents of change, sometimes including formal unionization efforts. This is a limitation that would discourage me from drawing policy conclusions from the study. Postdoc association membership lists may overrepresent dissatisfied postdocs. Of course, it is also possible that at least some postdoc associations have a broader mailing list. It is even possible that not all postdoc associations distributed the survey at all. With only 29 associations, it seems likely it would be feasible to contact them to confirm distribution and to give some consideration to their mission statements.

Second, in analyzing survey data, it is a questionable choice to include only complete cases. Various techniques for imputation allow the researchers to avoid discarding the valuable data from incomplete cases. The fact that age and gender were missing from over 20% of cases, while other variables were provided more completely, suggests that there may be some bias introduced by discarding missing data. Response bias also tends to overrepresent those with strong feelings and opinions.

The likelihood for sample bias due to the reliance on postdoc associations is my main concern with the study as a whole. This cannot be remedied but can be acknowledged as an important limitation.

Reply: We have decided to focus on postdoc associations given they represent many postdocs and enabled us one access point to large number of potential survey participants. Following your concern we now acknowledge this potential limitation in our GD.

About the missing data of gender and age: first, it seems reasonable to assume that missing data is equally distributed across the different postdoc associations and disciplines. Further, as these variables are only control variables rather than at the heart of our conceptualization we hope this limitation is not critical. Finally, it is important for us to clarify that we did use all the data available (we didn’t “throw” participant if s/he missed one of the questions). 

Comparison of postdocs’ SWLS scores with early studies of relevant populations was complicated by the fact that the authors report the mean (4.47 on a 1-7 scale), while apparently other studies tend to report the total scale score (5-35). On page 2, the authors refer to 4 as the median, when 4 is more accurately described as the midpoint of the scale. Diener & Pavot (1993) are careful to interpret findings relevant to their scale anchors. A mean of 4.47 indicates a neutral to slightly satisfied group.

But taking into account confidence intervals, it is not clear to me that the satisfaction of postdocs is significantly worse than that found by Diener & Pavot in 1993 for several groups of US college students. Given the cultural variation in reporting life satisfaction, the absence of nationality data also complicates interpretation of the scale (note the low satisfaction for Chinese students reported in the 1993 paper). Postdocs are a highly international group and nationality has been found to be relevant to satisfaction (Sabharwal & Corley 2009).

Figure 1 seemed especially problematic in terms of scale interpretation. This measurement seems to be on a different scale entirely, as it has a category >7, which would be impossible on a 1-7 scale.

The authors should review literature about and applications of the SWLS to relevant populations more thoroughly and contextualize their findings in clear, comparable terms.

Overall I did not find support for the claim that this survey showed surprisingly low levels of wellbeing.

Reply: This is a valuable discussion to have. Thank you. First, we used the 1-7 scale to be able to compare our results to some of the prior studies that did report their results on a 1-7 scale (e.g., Kjeldstadli et al., 2006; Samaranayake and Fernando, 2011).

While locating the 4.47 mean on the 5-35 SWLS scale suggests that our score falls under the “slightly satisfied” category (score = 22.35; Diener and Pavot, 1993 ) the finding is the lowest compared to all other student groups in developed countries or professionals (apart from “elderly caregivers”) as can be seen from Table 1 in Diener and Pavot (1993). According to these authors, satisfaction with life in the developed world is likely to hit “slightly satisfied” as a starting point. In this context our results actually show a surprisingly low satisfaction with life of postdocs. We now integrate this discussion in the text.

Your point about the diverse cultures and countries postdocs come from and how this plays a role is a very valid one and we are now discussing this as an avenue for future research. 

We now use the term “midpoint” rather than “median” when addressing the score 4. 

The decision to adapt our scale for the purpose of the figure appeared in footnote 3 in the original version of the manuscript: “ To be compatible with Abdallah et al.’s (2009) map, we transformed our 1-7 satisfaction with life scale to a 1-10 scale, on which the surveyed postdocs demonstrate a 6.1 satisfaction with life score.” Still, following the feedback from the review team we have decided to remove Figure 1 from the revised version.

  

I’d like to conclude with a few points of agreement with prior research. For example, we also found that satisfaction does typically decline the longer someone is a postdoc (Miller & Feldman 2015).

It is also not surprising that people lost interest in pursuing tenure-track academic appointments. If they did not lose interest, the competition for the relatively few available positions would be even more fierce, with perhaps even more stark disappointment among those not selected. Yet, while this competition has intensified, it is by no means new. Like entertainment and athletics, scientific careers function as tournaments (Freeman  et al. 2001). I agree with the authors’ recommendation that doctoral students and postdocs would benefit from more awareness of the structure of the scientific labor market.

Prior research also supports the focus on improving the postdoc experience through interpersonal, lab-level interventions, rather than more tangible issues of pay and benefits (Miller & Feldman 2015; Scaffidi & Berman, 2011; Davis 2009). Research on postdoc satisfaction tends to identify the mentoring relationship and professional development as key to postdocs’ satisfaction.

Reply: These are important points and highly relevant sources. We connect them now with our findings and implications.

In summary, I have some fairly strong methodological reservations about this paper. As presented, the findings of dissatisfaction do not seem particularly strong. There are reasons to question the role of sample bias in selecting for more dissatisfied postdocs. However, I could support publication of a revised version that better contextualizes the paper with existing research, acknowledges the activist role of postdoc associations and resulting potential for bias, better examines the potential for nonresponse bias and missing data, and provides careful comparisons with other studies using the SWLS.

Reply: Thank you. We have made an attempt to address all your comments and benefit significantly from your valuable feedback.

Minor points

  1.  For policy-relevant research, it is useful to report the time frame during which the data were collected.

Reply: We now add the time frame of the study.  

  1. Supplementary File 1 is described as having been distributed among 190 postdocs. In fact, it was completed by 190 postdocs and it is unknown to how many the survey was distributed. The NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering could provide an estimate of the number of postdocs at these institutions.

Reply: First, we change the wording to “completed by”.

Also, we now refer to the overall sample frame of postdocs in footnote 1.

I do not usually use SPSS, so was not able to examine the data file. For what is probably a fairly manageable dataset like this, it would be helpful to provide a flat text file in a format like .csv.

Reply: We have now submitted both SPSS and Excel files.  

  1. Both supplementary files appear to link to the survey, not the list of postdoc associations.

Reply: We made sure this is corrected.

  1. Paragraph 1, “warranted” seems like an odd word choice here.

Reply: We have modified the sentence.

References

1. Davis.G: Improving the postdoctoral experience: An empirical approach. In Science and engineering careers in the United States: An analysis of markets and employment.  University of Chicago Press. 2009. 99-127  Reference Source 

2. Freeman R, Weinstein E, Marincola E, Rosenbaum J, Solomon F: Competition and careers in biosciences.  Science. 2001;  294 (5550): 2293-2294  Publisher Full Text 

3. Miller J.M, Feldman M.P: isolated in the Lab: examining Dissatisfaction with Postdoctoral Appointments.  The Journal of Higher Education. 2015;  86 (5): 697-724  Reference Source 

4. Sabharwal M: Faculty job satisfaction across gender and discipline.  The Social Science Journal. 2009;  46 (3): 539-556  Reference Source 

5. Scaffidi A.K: A positive postdoctoral experience is related to quality supervision and career mentoring, collaborations, networking and a nurturing research environment.  Higher Education. 2011;  62 (6): 685  Reference Source 

6. Pavot W: Review of the satisfaction with life scale.  Psychological assessment. 1993;  5 (2): 164  Reference Source 

7. Pavot W: The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction.  The Journal of Positive Psychology. 2008;  3 (2): 137-152  Reference Source

F1000Res. 2017 Oct 12. doi: 10.5256/f1000research.13576.r26673

Referee response for version 1

Gary S McDowell 1,2

In “The Unhappy Postdoc”, Grinstein and Treister present the results of a survey to 190 respondents who carried out postdoctoral training in the U.S. The results seek to demonstrate the satisfaction of postdocs with their postdoctoral training and isolate factors which are critical to their sense of well-being. So far, very few efforts have looked at the well-being of postdocs in the context of their training, and this survey data sheds some light into the murky world of the postdoc.

The survey has a small sample size, understandable given the difficulty of actually getting access to communicate with postdocs, but the most pressing concerns are how far selection bias plays into the inclination of postdocs to respond; and whether there was thought given to an appropriate control group? However, it is encouraging to see that some of the results replicate the findings of others, which may hint towards this being at least a fair representation of a subset of the postdoc population.

Major concerns:

  • Please check the proportion of US PhDs pursuing postdocs - while this is not an easy number to quantify, Kahn and Ginther 2017 1 and Sauermann and Roach 2016 2 both point to about 80% of U.S. biomedical PhDs pursuing postdocs, and the NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates suggests that at graduation, 30% of PhDs have a postdoc lined up, and 50% don’t know what they are doing next, suggesting a large number of people are defaulting into this plan. Again also check the tenure-track position percentage from more recent literature/qualify - it may be as low as 8% for tenure-track positions (although this may be for research-intensive institutions specifically).

  • Sauermann and Roach 2016 2 should be cited - theirs is a larger survey effort of postdocs that addresses some of the same issues, particularly the change in career preference over time, and comparison with Figure 2 would be particularly useful.

  • The first sentence in the results section would make more sense being placed after the sentence that follows it, which lays out the scale. Also the authors should explain why a mean of 4.47 and 30% of postdocs lying below the median supports their argument - what is the mean expected from other studies using the same scale? This is suggested, and one example is given, but more examples and clearer articulation of the comparison would be helpful. Also, if 30% are below the median, does that not mean 70% are at or above? It is not clear why this result is indicative of poor satisfaction and the authors should make this clearer.

  • How does selection bias factor into the author’s analysis? One counter-argument is that the people with most to complain about felt most compelled to reply, and this skewed the results - how did the authors account for this, or is it possible to do so?

  • Could the authors comment further on the redirection of postdocs to industry or to other non-academic careers, reflecting on the state of the current labor market? The 2012 NIH Biomedical Workforce Working Group Report found that industry is actually hiring fewer people into research positions, and into more managerial/non-research positions, and our own work looking at Census data 3 show that the private sector is actually a shrinking component of the biomedical workforce, apparently explained by the increasing outsourcing of R&D to academic labs, who are both increasingly desperate for sources of funding, and also provide a plentiful pool of cheap labor. Please see also Mason et al., 2016 4.

  • Reference could also be made to Faupel-Badger et al., 2017 5, which is possibly the only other citation that looks at career satisfaction from postdoctoral training.

  • Can the authors link their findings to recent work that suggests that it is not the labor market, but the nature of the academic position itself, which is driving researchers out of academia? See Sauermann and Roach 2017 6.

  • In Table 1, what does 'number of papers' show - is it the number published during a postdoc? In total? The survey asks this, but the table doesn't make clear which data this is. Both numbers would actually be very interesting, and also if it's possible to show how many papers people had from their first postdoc before possibly doing another one.

Minor concerns:

  • “Their research requires heavier funding” - could the authors articulate what they mean here? Is it that research generally has become more expensive? Or is there some increased burden at the postdoctoral position?

  • The increasing cost of research and the market forces that are resulting in more postdocs (that they are essentially cheaper than graduate students) have been pointed out by Paula Stephan in her book “How Economics Shapes Science” 7 and elsewhere, and these works should be cited appropriately in the introduction

  • “Moreover, postdocs that are not able to achieve an academic appointment often become over-qualified for industry positions while losing alternative higher compensation (salaries in the industry)” - Kahn and Ginther 2017 1 should be cited here.

  • Footnote 3 should probably be moved into the Figure Legend of Figure 1, to highlight transformation of the 1-7 scale into a 1-10 scale.

  • In Table 1, “Duration of postdoc (years)” may be better described as “Total years in postdoctoral positions” or similar, if the survey questions are understood correctly - it is not clear whether this is pointing out the years in the current postdoc, or the years of postdoccing in total.

  • Supplementary File 2 is not as described, but is the same as Supplementary File 1.

I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.

References

  • 1. Kahn S, Ginther DK: The impact of postdoctoral training on early careers in biomedicine. .2017;35(1) : 10.1038/nbt.3766 90-94 10.1038/nbt.3766 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2. Sauermann H, Roach M: SCIENTIFIC WORKFORCE. Why pursue the postdoc path?. .2016;352(6286) : 10.1126/science.aaf2061 663-4 10.1126/science.aaf2061 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3. Heggeness ML: Preparing for the 21st Century Biomedical Research Job Market: Using Census Data to Inform Policy and Career Decision-Making. .2016;
  • 4. Mason JL, Johnston E, Berndt S, Segal K, Lei M, Wiest JS: Labor and skills gap analysis of the biomedical research workforce. .2016;30(8) : 10.1096/fj.201500067R 2673-83 10.1096/fj.201500067R [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 5. Faupel-Badger JM, Nelson DE, Izmirlian G: Career Satisfaction and Perceived Salary Competitiveness among Individuals Who Completed Postdoctoral Research Training in Cancer Prevention. .2017;12(1) : 10.1371/journal.pone.0169859 e0169859 10.1371/journal.pone.0169859 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 6. Roach M, Sauermann H: The declining interest in an academic career. .2017;12(9) : 10.1371/journal.pone.0184130 e0184130 10.1371/journal.pone.0184130 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 7. Stephan P: How Economics Shapes Science. .2012;
F1000Res. 2018 Apr 25.
Amir Grinstein 1

Referee 2

Gary S McDowell, The Future of Research Inc., 848 Brockton Avenue, Abington, MA, USA;  Manylabs, 1086 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA, USA 

Approved with Reservations

In “The Unhappy Postdoc”, Grinstein and Treister present the results of a survey to 190 respondents who carried out postdoctoral training in the U.S. The results seek to demonstrate the satisfaction of postdocs with their postdoctoral training and isolate factors which are critical to their sense of well-being. So far, very few efforts have looked at the well-being of postdocs in the context of their training, and this survey data sheds some light into the murky world of the postdoc.

The survey has a small sample size, understandable given the difficulty of actually getting access to communicate with postdocs, but the most pressing concerns are how far selection bias plays into the inclination of postdocs to respond; and whether there was thought given to an appropriate control group? However, it is encouraging to see that some of the results replicate the findings of others, which may hint towards this being at least a fair representation of a subset of the postdoc population.

Major concerns:

  • Please check the proportion of US PhDs pursuing postdocs - while this is not an easy number to quantify, Kahn and Ginther 2017 1 and Sauermann and Roach 2016 2 both point to about 80% of U.S. biomedical PhDs pursuing postdocs, and the  NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates suggests that at graduation, 30% of PhDs have a postdoc lined up, and 50% don’t know what they are doing next, suggesting a large number of people are defaulting into this plan. Again also check the tenure-track position percentage from more recent literature/qualify - it may be as low as 8% for tenure-track positions (although this may be for research-intensive institutions specifically).

Reply: Thank you for these valuable sources. Based on these suggestions we updated our introduction to the manuscript.

  • Sauermann and Roach 2016 2 should be cited - theirs is a larger survey effort of postdocs that addresses some of the same issues, particularly the change in career preference over time, and comparison with Figure 2 would be particularly useful.

Reply: Thank you for suggesting this. This paper - and other sources suggested by the review team - are now cited and integrated into our discussion of the dynamics of postdocs’ career path.  

  • The first sentence in the results section would make more sense being placed after the sentence that follows it, which lays out the scale. Also the authors should explain why a mean of 4.47 and 30% of postdocs lying below the median supports their argument - what is the mean expected from other studies using the same scale? This is suggested, and one example is given, but more examples and clearer articulation of the comparison would be helpful. Also, if 30% are below the median, does that not mean 70% are at or above? It is not clear why this result is indicative of poor satisfaction and the authors should make this clearer.

Reply: First, we made the suggested editing change. Also, w e now present our results more clearly in the context of other studies examining various populations’ life satisfaction (a good review is Diener and Pavot, 1993 ). The mean life satisfaction we found for postdocs is the lowest compared to all other student groups in developed countries or professionals (apart from “elderly caregivers”) as can be seen from Table 1 in Diener and Pavot (1993).

  • How does selection bias factor into the author’s analysis? One counter-argument is that the people with most to complain about felt most compelled to reply, and this skewed the results - how did the authors account for this, or is it possible to do so?

Reply: This is a valid point. One way of addressing this is indeed comparing our findings to many other populations and studies – as we do now more rigorously do – with the understanding that such a potential bias can play in any surveyed group. Further, we now acknowledge this potential limitation in our GD.

  • Could the authors comment further on the redirection of postdocs to industry or to other non-academic careers, reflecting on the state of the current labor market?  The 2012 NIH Biomedical Workforce Working Group Report found that industry is actually hiring fewer people into research positions, and into more managerial/non-research positions, and our own work looking at Census data 3 show that the private sector is actually a shrinking component of the biomedical workforce, apparently explained by the increasing outsourcing of R&D to academic labs, who are both increasingly desperate for sources of funding, and also provide a plentiful pool of cheap labor. Please see also Mason  et al., 2016 4.

Reply: Thank you for highlighting these evidence and research. We now integrate them to our discussion of the study’s implications.

  • Reference could also be made to Faupel-Badger  et al., 2017 5, which is possibly the only other citation that looks at career satisfaction from postdoctoral training.

Reply: Thank you. We now cite this work.

  • Can the authors link their findings to recent work that suggests that it is not the labor market, but the nature of the academic position itself, which is driving researchers out of academia? See Sauermann and Roach 2017 6.

Reply: We now include this idea in our concluding discussion.  

  • In Table 1, what does 'number of papers' show - is it the number published during a postdoc? In total? The survey asks this, but the table doesn't make clear which data this is. Both numbers would actually be very interesting, and also if it's possible to show how many papers people had from their first postdoc before possibly doing another one.

Reply: Currently we reported on the total number of publications. We now improve the labeling and add a column for number publications during the postdoc. Unfortunately, we do not have the data about publications per postdoc fellowship.

Minor concerns:

  • “Their research requires heavier funding” - could the authors articulate what they mean here? Is it that research generally has become more expensive? Or is there some increased burden at the postdoctoral position?

Reply: This refers to the burden of maintaining a lab and conducting top-quality scientific work. We are now more explicit in the text and add a supporting citation.  

  • The increasing cost of research and the market forces that are resulting in more postdocs (that they are essentially cheaper than graduate students) have been pointed out by Paula Stephan in her book “How Economics Shapes Science” 7 and elsewhere, and these works should be cited appropriately in the introduction

Reply: Thank you for this valuable source. We now included it in the introduction.

  • “Moreover, postdocs that are not able to achieve an academic appointment often become over-qualified for industry positions while losing alternative higher compensation (salaries in the industry)” - Kahn and Ginther 2017 1should be cited here.

Reply: Thank you!

  • Footnote 3 should probably be moved into the Figure Legend of Figure 1, to highlight transformation of the 1-7 scale into a 1-10 scale.

Reply: Given reviewers’ feedback we have decided to remove Figure 1.

  • In Table 1, “Duration of postdoc (years)” may be better described as “Total years in postdoctoral positions” or similar, if the survey questions are understood correctly - it is not clear whether this is pointing out the years in the current postdoc, or the years of postdoccing in total.

Reply: Done.

  • Supplementary File 2 is not as described, but is the same as Supplementary File 1.

Reply: We now corrected this. Thank you.

References

1. Kahn S, Ginther DK: The impact of postdoctoral training on early careers in biomedicine. Nat Biotechnol. 2017;  35 (1): 90-94  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

2. Sauermann H, Roach M: SCIENTIFIC WORKFORCE. Why pursue the postdoc path?.  Science. 2016;  352 (6286): 663-4  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

3. Heggeness ML: Preparing for the 21st Century Biomedical Research Job Market: Using Census Data to Inform Policy and Career Decision-Making.  Self-Journals of Science. 2016.  Publisher Full Text 

4. Mason JL, Johnston E, Berndt S, Segal K, Lei M, Wiest JS: Labor and skills gap analysis of the biomedical research workforce. FASEB J. 2016;  30 (8): 2673-83  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

5. Faupel-Badger JM, Nelson DE, Izmirlian G: Career Satisfaction and Perceived Salary Competitiveness among Individuals Who Completed Postdoctoral Research Training in Cancer Prevention. PLoS One. 2017;  12 (1): e0169859  PubMed Abstract|  Publisher Full Text 

6. Roach M, Sauermann H: The declining interest in an academic career. PLoS One. 2017;  12 (9): e0184130  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

7. Stephan P: How Economics Shapes Science.  Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. 2012.

F1000Res. 2017 Oct 11. doi: 10.5256/f1000research.13576.r26676

Referee response for version 1

Nick Riddiford 1

Grinstein and Treister present and discuss survey data collected from 190 US-based postdoctoral researchers examining life satisfaction and career goals of respondents. Their data suggest that postdocs in the US are less satisfied with their life than the general population, and that their career goals drift further away from academic research as they progress though their fellowship(s). Such data is useful and adds to a growing body of evidence that point to systemic failures in the way postdocs are treated.

While Grinstein and Treister do a good job of describing the data, the analysis is fairly light, and several questions are left unconsidered. Most importantly, in looking for correlates of life satisfaction, what does it say that the explanatory variables you have used don’t explain this data? In addition to several major revisions, I also suggest that the authors discuss how their work relates to similar data from recent articles (for example [ref1] - 4.

Major revisions

  1. Considering the general tone of the manuscript is descriptive, I would strongly urge plotting each of the correlation analyses (life satisfaction vs gender, age …), and reporting R 2 values (I think that these are easily generated as the tests have already been done) and simply discussing any observed correlations. The lack of significance in such a small dataset does not automatically indicate that there is nothing interesting going on. At the very least, I think the correlation between “lab atmosphere” and life satisfaction should be plotted, and the tests/software used for the correlation analyses clearly detailed in the methods section (linear regression?). Furthermore, a correlation coefficient of 0.247 is reported  – is this really the R value or the R 2? If the former, then the R 2 = 0.06, which means that “lab atmosphere” explains only 6% of the variability in reported life satisfaction scores, which suggests there could be some other explanatory variables that haven’t been considered. This should be discussed.  

  2. A second major issue relates to Figure 1. Here, it is reported in the first sentence of the results that the mean satisfaction score was 4.47, but the colouring of figure 1 suggests that postdocs fall in the 5.5-7.0 bracket. In either case, I would suggest that this only serves to highlight the many caveats of a) self-reporting of life satisfaction and b) making comparisons between data sets collected under different conditions. Do the authors really think that, with a mean life satisfaction of 4.47, postdocs in the US are (quite considerably) less satisfied with life than residents of some of the poorest, most poverty-stricken countries in the world? If not, I recommend that this figure be removed entirely. Perhaps a more meaningful comparison to make would be between the US population (per state/demographic?) and US-based postdocs.

  3. To ensure reproducibility, Dataset 1 should be resubmitted as an excel compatible file (or.txt, .csv) instead of, or in addition to, the .sav they currently provide. 

Minor points

  1. What do the alpha values refer to throughout the manuscript (e.g. α=.90)? These either need to be removed or discussed in the Methods section.

  2. Table 1 should be more formally presented (or see suggestion 1) and formatted i.e succinct, descriptive title and footnote describing ‘n’, and why there are missing values i.e discrepancy between 190 and 178). This applies to all other figures: The title should be concise, and followed by a legend that describes the figure in sufficient detail. Commentaries on the figure – such as in Fig.2 – belong in the main body of the results section.

  3. Why do you make the assumption that postdocs who answered your survey are “typically already affiliated with a top-tier academic affiliation”?

  4. “Satisfaction with life” should be replaced with “life satisfaction” throughout manuscript.

  5. Remove “Less than a third” in sentence containing “Only 28.4% “agreed” or “definitely agreed” to recommend the postdoc path to others. Less than a third.”.

  6. Figure 2 should be reproduced at a higher quality – it appears very pixilated on my screen.

 

Grammatical mistakes

Introduction

  • Replace “kids” with “children” or similar in sentence containing “personal life (marriage, kids) on hold.”

Results

  • Replace “Further” with “Furthermore” in sentence containing “Further, 30% of participants demonstrate”

  • Consider revising repetitive sentence containing “typically already affiliated with a top-tier academic affiliation”

  • Pluralise “type” in sentence containing “Further, prior work on satisfaction with life of other type of skilled trainees”

Discussion

  • Replace “scarce” with “scarcer” or “more scarce” in sentence containing “On the other hand, however, the growing realization that these positions are scarce than ever before”

  • Remove “they” from sentence containing “they should consider adopting”

  • Catalysts should not be plural in sentence containing “could be another catalysts for postdocs to re-think”

 

Several recent survey-based articles that would be worth comparing to

 

Suggestions

  • Table 1 would be better represented as a several bar charts

  • You report that “out of a list of potential explanatory variables of satisfaction with life among postdocs … only one factor …”. Even if this is mostly negative data, this would make a nice figure, as it’s quite surprising to me that you find no correlation between some of your explanatory variables

  • Representing Fig.2 as a 3D bar chart adds nothing at a loss of clarity. Consider replotting as a conventional 2D bar chart  

I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.

References

  • 1. Powell K: Hard work, little reward: Nature readers reveal working hours and research challenges. .2016; 10.1038/nature.2016.20933 10.1038/nature.2016.20933 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 2. Heggeness ML, Gunsalus KT, Pacas J, McDowell GS: Preparing for the 21st Century Biomedical Research Job Market: Using Census Data to Inform Policy and Career Decision-Making. .2016;
  • 3.  Heggeness ML, Gunsalus KTW, Pacas J, McDowell G: Snapshot of the US biomedical workforce. .2016;541:21-23 [Google Scholar]
  • 4. Riddiford N: A survey of working conditions within biomedical research in the United Kingdom. .2017;6: 10.12688/f1000research.11029.1 10.12688/f1000research.11029.1 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
F1000Res. 2018 Apr 25.
Amir Grinstein 1

Referee 3

Nick Riddiford, Institut Curie, Paris, France 

Approved with Reservations

Grinstein and Treister present and discuss survey data collected from 190 US-based postdoctoral researchers examining life satisfaction and career goals of respondents. Their data suggest that postdocs in the US are less satisfied with their life than the general population, and that their career goals drift further away from academic research as they progress though their fellowship(s). Such data is useful and adds to a growing body of evidence that point to systemic failures in the way postdocs are treated.

While Grinstein and Treister do a good job of describing the data, the analysis is fairly light, and several questions are left unconsidered. Most importantly, in looking for correlates of life satisfaction, what does it say that the explanatory variables you have used don’t explain this data? In addition to several major revisions, I also suggest that the authors discuss how their work relates to similar data from recent articles (for example [ref1] - 4.

Major revisions

  1. Considering the general tone of the manuscript is descriptive, I would strongly urge plotting each of the correlation analyses (life satisfaction vs gender, age …), and reporting R 2 values (I think that these are easily generated as the tests have already been done) and simply discussing any observed correlations. The lack of significance in such a small dataset does not automatically indicate that there is nothing interesting going on. At the very least, I think the correlation between “lab atmosphere” and life satisfaction should be plotted, and the tests/software used for the correlation analyses clearly detailed in the methods section (linear regression?). Furthermore, a correlation coefficient of 0.247 is reported – is this really the R value or the R 2? If the former, then the R 2 = 0.06, which means that “lab atmosphere” explains only 6% of the variability in reported life satisfaction scores, which suggests there could be some other explanatory variables that haven’t been considered. This should be discussed.  

Reply: Thank you for pushing us to more rigorously test our results. We now report in more detail the correlation matrix and a more rigorous regression analysis.

  1. A second major issue relates to Figure 1. Here, it is reported in the first sentence of the results that the mean satisfaction score was 4.47, but the colouring of figure 1 suggests that postdocs fall in the 5.5-7.0 bracket. In either case, I would suggest that this only serves to highlight the many caveats of a) self-reporting of life satisfaction and b) making comparisons between data sets collected under different conditions. Do the authors really think that, with a mean life satisfaction of 4.47, postdocs in the US are (quite considerably) less satisfied with life than residents of some of the poorest, most poverty-stricken countries in the world? If not, I recommend that this figure be removed entirely. Perhaps a more meaningful comparison to make would be between the US population (per state/demographic?) and US-based postdocs.

Reply: We now present our results more clearly in the context of other studies examining various populations’ life satisfaction (a good review is Diener and Pavot, 1993 ). The mean life satisfaction we found for postdocs is the lowest compared to all other student groups in developed countries or professionals (apart from “elderly caregivers”) as can be seen from Table 1 in Diener and Pavot (1993).

We are sorry for not being clear enough about the difference between the text and the use of our scale and the Figure. The decision to adapt our scale for the purpose of the figure appeared in footnote 3 of the original version of the manuscript: “ To be compatible with Abdallah et al.’s (2009) map, we transformed our 1-7 satisfaction with life scale to a 1-10 scale, on which the surveyed postdocs demonstrate a 6.1 satisfaction with life score.” Still, given the feedback from the review team we have decided to remove Figure 1 from the revised manuscript.

Further, following your suggestions we toned down our discussion and removed some of the “not clean” comparisons. Noteworthy that our findings do suggest that in the context of developed countries, our results actually show a surprisingly low life satisfaction score of postdocs. We now integrate this discussion in the text.

  1. To ensure reproducibility, Dataset 1 should be resubmitted as an excel compatible file (or.txt, .csv) instead of, or in addition to, the .sav they currently provide. 

Reply: Done.

Minor points

  1. What do the alpha values refer to throughout the manuscript (e.g. α=.90)? These either need to be removed or discussed in the Methods section.

Reply: Sorry for not being clear. We now explain this better in the text (Cronbach’s Alpha that tests for the reliability of the scale).

  1. Table 1 should be more formally presented (or see suggestion 1) and formatted i.e succinct, descriptive title and footnote describing ‘n’, and why there are missing values i.e discrepancy between 190 and 178). This applies to all other figures: The title should be concise, and followed by a legend that describes the figure in sufficient detail. Commentaries on the figure – such as in Fig.2 – belong in the main body of the results section.

Reply: We now include a correlation matrix in addition to the table describing participants’ profiles. We also added a table for the regression analysis results. We moved the elaborated text from Fig. 2. We kept (and better explained) some of the text below the tables that seemed the most relevant to interpret the results (coding of some variables, p values).

  1. Why do you make the assumption that postdocs who answered your survey are “typically already affiliated with a top-tier academic affiliation”?

Reply: This is a fair point. We removed this unfounded assumption.  

  1. “Satisfaction with life” should be replaced with “life satisfaction” throughout manuscript.

Reply: Our use of “satisfaction with life” was influenced by the fact that this is the way the established measure is labeled. In the revised version we kept this term only when addressing the scale and in all other locations changed to “life satisfaction”. 

  1. Remove “Less than a third” in sentence containing “Only 28.4% “agreed” or “definitely agreed” to recommend the postdoc path to others. Less than a third.”.

Reply: Done.

  1. Figure 2 should be reproduced at a higher quality – it appears very pixilated on my screen.

  • Reply: We replotted this figure as 2D bar chart and changed the colors. We hope it is clearer now. Also, please note this is now Fig. 1.

Grammatical mistakes

Introduction

  • Replace “kids” with “children” or similar in sentence containing “personal life (marriage, kids) on hold.”

Reply: Done.  

Results

  • Replace “Further” with “Furthermore” in sentence containing “Further, 30% of participants demonstrate”

Reply: Done.  

  • Consider revising repetitive sentence containing “typically already affiliated with a top-tier academic affiliation”

  • Pluralise “type” in sentence containing “Further, prior work on satisfaction with life of other type of skilled trainees”

  • Replace “scarce” with “scarcer” or “more scarce” in sentence containing “On the other hand, however, the growing realization that these positions are scarce than ever before”

  • Remove “they” from sentence containing “they should consider adopting”

  • Catalysts should not be plural in sentence containing “could be another catalysts for postdocs to re-think”

Reply: We have corrected (or removed) the relevant sentences.  

Several recent survey-based articles that would be worth comparing to

Reply: Thank you. We have integrated some of the work that studied these sources throughout the revised manuscript.

 Suggestions

  • Table 1 would be better represented as a several bar charts

Reply: As we are more used to the “standard” way of reporting participants’ characteristics in a table we thought most readers would prefer a “standard” table. If this is key, we can of course make the change in a next revision effort.

  • You report that “out of a list of potential explanatory variables of satisfaction with life among postdocs … only one factor …”. Even if this is mostly negative data, this would make a nice figure, as it’s quite surprising to me that you find no correlation between some of your explanatory variables

Reply: We were not sure what type of figure would capture best this effect. In the revised version we also include a table for the regression analysis results which make results more clear and accessible. We are happy to create a figure if you have an idea about the most relevant approach.

  • Representing Fig.2 as a 3D bar chart adds nothing at a loss of clarity. Consider replotting as a conventional 2D bar chart  

Reply: Done.  Please note this is Fig. 1 now.  

References

1. Powell K: Hard work, little reward: Nature readers reveal working hours and research challenges.  Nature. 2016. Publisher Full Text 

2. Heggeness ML, Gunsalus KT, Pacas J, McDowell GS: Preparing for the 21st Century Biomedical Research Job Market: Using Census Data to Inform Policy and Career Decision-Making.  sjscience.org. 2016. 

3.  Heggeness ML, Gunsalus KTW, Pacas J, McDowell G: Snapshot of the US biomedical workforce.  Nature. 2016;  541: 21-23

4. Riddiford N: A survey of working conditions within biomedical research in the United Kingdom.  F1000Research. 2017;  6. Publisher Full Text

F1000Res. 2017 Oct 9. doi: 10.5256/f1000research.13576.r26232

Referee response for version 1

Navid Ghaffarzadegan 1, Ran Xu 2

Overall this is an interesting work and it is well-written. The study explores satisfaction with life of postdocs. It also looks at career goal change of postdocs. The study contributes to our understanding of the current mental state of postdocs, a growing sub-population of the science workforce.

The work is clearly and accurately presented. However, there are many other current literature on this topic that authors may benefit from reading them and linking their literature review to those studies or comparing and contrasting their findings.

The study design is appropriate. There are two concerns: first, as the authors acknowledge the response rate was not available. Second, biomedical postdocs in this data seem to be over-represented when compared to the national sample in Powell (2015) 1. As reported in other studies 2 - 3, the chance of landing tenure-track positions for PhDs of biomedical sciences and engineering is relatively small, which may affect their satisfaction. 

Most of the analysis are descriptive, which is fine. The interpretations are mostly accurate. The relationship between lab atmosphere and satisfaction is interesting. However, one might worried it’s confounded by individual characteristics such as personality – that is, people with more extraversion or agreeableness will score high on both satisfaction and subjective lab atmosphere. Furthermore, a more interesting/appropriate analysis for figure 2 might be to present results for subgroups by duration of the postdoc position.

Most of the source data underlying the results are available to ensure full reproducibility. It seems that the link for Supplementary file 2 leads to the same source as for Supplementary file 1 which can be fixed.

Finally, most of the conclusions are adequately supported by the results. The only problem was the suggestion of focusing on soft (non-science) factors of the lab. While the point makes sense, since the paper is descriptive, the authors should avoid causal interpretations.

We have read this submission. We believe that we have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however we have significant reservations, as outlined above.

References

  • 1. Powell K: The future of the postdoc. .2015;520(7546) : 10.1038/520144a 144-7 10.1038/520144a [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2. Larson RC, Ghaffarzadegan N, Xue Y: Too Many PhD Graduates or Too Few Academic Job Openings: The Basic Reproductive Number R0 in Academia. .31(6) : 10.1002/sres.2210 745-750 10.1002/sres.2210 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3. Ghaffarzadegan N, Hawley J, Larson R, Xue Y: A Note on PhD Population Growth in Biomedical Sciences. .23(3) : 10.1002/sres.2324 402-405 10.1002/sres.2324 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
F1000Res. 2018 Apr 25.
Amir Grinstein 1

Referee 4

Navid Ghaffarzadegan, Grado Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA 

Ran Xu, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA 

Approved with Reservations

Overall this is an interesting work and it is well-written. The study explores satisfaction with life of postdocs. It also looks at career goal change of postdocs. The study contributes to our understanding of the current mental state of postdocs, a growing sub-population of the science workforce.

The work is clearly and accurately presented. However, there are many other current literature on this topic that authors may benefit from reading them and linking their literature review to those studies or comparing and contrasting their findings.

Reply: Thank you for this suggestion. We have followed the review team recommendation and update our literature review.

The study design is appropriate. There are two concerns: first, as the authors acknowledge the response rate was not available. Second, biomedical postdocs in this data seem to be over-represented when compared to the national sample in Powell (2015) 1. As reported in other studies 2 - 3, the chance of landing tenure-track positions for PhDs of biomedical sciences and engineering is relatively small, which may affect their satisfaction. 

Reply: Thank you for this feedback which we now acknowledge as a potential limitation of our work.

Most of the analysis are descriptive, which is fine. The interpretations are mostly accurate. The relationship between lab atmosphere and satisfaction is interesting. However, one might worried it’s confounded by individual characteristics such as personality – that is, people with more extraversion or agreeableness will score high on both satisfaction and subjective lab atmosphere. Furthermore, a more interesting/appropriate analysis for figure 2 might be to present results for subgroups by duration of the postdoc position.

Reply: To account for multiple factors and provide a more rigorous testing of the data we now report a regression analysis.

Most of the source data underlying the results are available to ensure full reproducibility. It seems that the link for Supplementary file 2 leads to the same source as for Supplementary file 1 which can be fixed.

Reply: We corrected for this.

Finally, most of the conclusions are adequately supported by the results. The only problem was the suggestion of focusing on soft (non-science) factors of the lab. While the point makes sense, since the paper is descriptive, the authors should avoid causal interpretations.

Reply: We agree our finding is correlational in nature. The language we used is hopefully not too strong (e.g., the finding can “help lab leaders”) and we also now incorporate additional support from previous work that found relatively similar effects.  

References

1. Powell K: The future of the postdoc. Nature. 2015;  520 (7546): 144-7  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

2. Larson RC, Ghaffarzadegan N, Xue Y: Too Many PhD Graduates or Too Few Academic Job Openings: The Basic Reproductive Number R0 in Academia. Syst Res Behav Sci.  31 (6): 745-750  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text 

3. Ghaffarzadegan N, Hawley J, Larson R, Xue Y: A Note on PhD Population Growth in Biomedical Sciences. Syst Res Behav Sci.  23 (3): 402-405  PubMed Abstract |  Publisher Full Text

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    Survey response

    A data set including the response of 190 North American postdocs.

    Copyright: © 2017 Grinstein A and Treister R

    Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

    Click here for additional data file. (30.4KB, tgz)
    Click here for additional data file. (227.6KB, tgz)
    Click here for additional data file. (11.5KB, tgz)

    Data Availability Statement

    The data referenced by this article are under copyright with the following copyright statement: Copyright: © 2017 Grinstein A and Treister R

    Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

    Dataset 1

    Survey Response: A dataset including the response of 190 North American postdocs. 10.5256/f1000research.12538.d176428 ( Grinstein & Treister, 2017)

    Articles from F1000Research are provided here courtesy of F1000 Research Ltd

    RESOURCES