The Gender Gap in Employment and Salaries for Doctoral Recipients

The National Science Foundation recently released its annual data on research doctoral degree recipients in the United States. Data for the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates shows that women earned 47.5 percent of all doctorates awarded by U.S. universities in 2023. The data also shows the employment plans of students after they received their doctoral degrees.

In 2023, 18,054 of the 27,499 women, or 65.6 percent, who earned doctoral degrees had firm commitments of employment by the time they received their degree. This was slightly lower than the percentage of male doctoral degree recipients who had firm job offers by the time they received their doctoral degree.

For 2023 doctoral recipients who had a job offer, 41.5 percent of women had accepted positions in the academic arena. In 2003, 58.6 percent of women who earned doctorates had secured an academic appointment by the time they were awarded their doctoral degree. For male doctoral receipients in 2023 who had job offers, only were 27.3 were heading to academia. In 2003, more than half of all men with job offers at the time they earned their doctorate were headed to academia. Of women who had firm employment commitments by the time they received their doctorate in 2023, 35.9 had jobs in the corporate world compared to 56.6 percent of men who had job commitments by the time they were awarded their doctorate. It appears that for both men and women, doctoral graduates are becoming increasingly more likely to take high-paying jobs in the private sector rather that staying in the academic world.

Roughly 7 percent of men and women who earned doctorates were heading to jobs in government or the public sector. More than 8 percent of the women who had secured a position by the time they earned their doctorate in 2023 had secured a position in the nonprofit sector. This was nearly twice the percentage of men earning doctorate who joined the nonprofit world.

For all doctoral recipients in 2023 who had employment commitments by the time they received their doctorate, women were to receive a median salary of $87,000 compared to a median salary for men of $110,000. The far larger percentage of male doctoral recipients taking jobs in business and industry undoubtedly is a major reason for the salary gender gap for new doctoral recipients. Men who took jobs as postdoctoral researchers in the academic world had a median income that was just $3,000 more than the medial salary for women who were hired as postdoctoral researchers.