(disclaimer: I am a foreign postdoc)
Did any of you read this from the latest issue of Science: Huddled Masses on foreign postdocs?
A recent paper by Harvard economist George J. Borjas shows, however, that even for doctorate-level researchers, "the supply-demand textbook model is correct after all." Unlike most economic analysts, Borjas focused not on what foreign-born scientists add to the scientific enterprise or society as a whole but on what their presence costs individual American scientists. For postdocs and other early-career Ph.D.s in a number of fields, unfortunately, the picture he paints isn't pretty.
I'm not so sure that biomedical postdocs wages are that dependent on the market - after all our pay is based mostly on NIH guidelines. Anyway here's some stats:
Borjas found that "a 10% immigration-induced increase in the supply of doctorates lowers the wage of competing workers by about 3 to 4%," the paper states. And, adds Stephan, "he's not just looking at what happens to wages of U.S. citizens." The pay that the foreign-born scientists themselves receive is also reduced by a large number of fellow immigrants coming into their field. "There's an immigrant effect on them, too," she says.That same hypothetical 10% immigrant influx "increases the probability of being employed in a postdoctoral appointment by 20 to 30%, regardless of whether affected doctorates [sic] are native born or foreign born," Borjas writes in the paper. And, he continues, "because postdocs earn about 50% less than comparable workers in 'regular' jobs, an important wage impact of immigration may be taking place through the 'crowding' of workers in immigrant penetrated fields into postdoctoral appointments."
Borjas's paper uses detailed data about the numbers of foreign-born students earning U.S. Ph.D.s in a given year but does not provide similarly precise figures for postdocs. Anyone familiar with the current research scene, however, especially in such fields as biology, knows that the flow of foreign-born postdocs vastly exceeds Borjas's theoretical 10%. "A huge number of them have come. The increase has been quite dramatic recently," Stephan says. Given this situation, Borjas told NextWave, foreign postdocs "should have a very large effect on the economic forces that determine the earnings of postdocs."
I'm not absolutely sold on this. You could make the argument that in the absence of foreign postdocs, the NIH would have to raise the income guidelines to attract Americans into science. But part of the reason that postdocs are paid so low and work so hard is that many believe that hard work now will have delayed benefits ... in a possible future lab. Unfortunately this is a pyramid scheme. Most postdocs will never reap these rewards and drop out of academic science before they can collect.
Here is another solution - have permanent, well paid postdoc positions, and have the NIH promote these positions with grants. This would eliminate the pyramid scheme effect and make postdochood less of gamble.
Any thoughts out there?
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The reason for an increase in postdocs doesn't matter - with the same reasoning an increase of awarded PhDs by 10% will give the same effect on salaries. So, from a selfish perspective current postdocs should teach less, do a worse job when teaching and refrain from outreach or communication with the public to avoid having young people becoming interested and enter the field.
"Most postdocs will never reap these rewards and drop out of academic science before they can collect"
if you're up for a depressing read, try this:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north427.html
while I think North has completely missed the point of why people enter the sciences (i.e. it's actually exciting, fun work that people are passionate about), he accurately describes the job prospects and "glut" of PhDs, and how that factors (or, he argues, should factor) into their decision to remain in academia.
guess we can all wait for the baby boomers to retire...
Here in Sweden the tax situation makes it extremely advantageous to take on foreign post-docs for a two year period - and then promptly get rid of them. The lack of permanent positions for post-docs you mentioned is familiar although I actually suspect it is far worse here. To give you an example, I recently found out that the head of one of the main departments here at one of the top Universities in Sweden (I won't mention any names) has finally achieved the success of getting a six year position - funded by a research charity, not the state. Remember, this is the head of a major department and it took that person about fifteen years to get this degree of career stability. The amount of risks being taken by post-docs trying to get results for that big paper they need to get the next grant or position is simply staggering (I've heard tales of oncogenic viral construct experiments being carried out that are VERY dangerous and yet the risks undertaken are entirely understandable given the desperation faced by researchers on very short contracts). Sooner or later this situation is going to came back and bite the ass of the population as a whole, not just researchers. Post-doc Armageddon anyone ?
I was on the Harvard campus a couple of months ago, and I heard from an administrator that there were a number of Medical School faculty pushing to cut salaries for Chinese postdocs to $15K/year to help stretch NIH grants a little farther. I don't think the proposal went anywhere (probably because it would be illegal to pay postdocs on H-1Bs less than the prevailing wage), but if postdocs weren't easy to come by, nobody would even think of doing something like that.
When I looked at salaries reported in the Sigma Xi Postdoc Survey (http://postdoc.sigmaxi.org/results), I found that foreign-born postdocs were paid less than natives (about 5-10% if memory serves), even after controlling for field, years of experience, etc. That does suggest that immigration may be leading to downward wage pressures.
While it is true that some places approximate NRSA numbers for salaries, even those numbers have been stagnating recently.
Permanent post-docs are one level that could be important, but I've always liked the idea of emphasizing master's degrees. A PhD really isn't necessary to be a good worker under a PI that knows what they're doing. Right now, in academic science, masters degrees are stigmatized as something you get as a consolation prize. It's given mainly as a checkpoint on the way to a PhD, or to those who quit halfway through their PhD.
Why not create a tier of decently-paying positions that only require a masters? Seems to me that this could solve some of the current problems with overproduction of PhDs.
LOL! Sad, but completely true.
As a woman, I feel a certain level of obligation to encourage young girls to go into the sciences, but a part of me is reluctant to do so. The system is already filled with smart people who can't get well-paying jobs, why would I want that for the next generation of young women?
I think the NIH guidelines for salary are pretty fair, but are rarely followed. I think if a PI is paying their postdocs with an RO1 (as many are), they should be REQUIRED to follow the NIH salary guidelines. Once you pass the 2-3 year mark, the salary goes up quite a bit, which might also discourage PIs from keeping postdocs around longer than they should.
I agree that creating more permanent, well-paid research professor positions (let's not call them permanent postdocs) are a great idea, but would cost a great deal of money. The people in charge of the system are reaping the benefits of long-term cheap postdoc labor, why would they want to change it?
Really. Well in the institutes I've been in (Columbia U and Harvard Medical) all the postdocs that I know get paid based on the NIH guidelines ...and I think that's true of MIT postdocs that I know of. But my sample may be biased. Boston and NYC are expensive places to live and these are big well funded institutes (albeit most of the money for salaries comes from the NIH, HHMI and other funding sources). So are postdocs out there getting what the NIH recommends?
I think you're close to right Alex. The places I've been all pay NIH guideline. On my interview tour I asked that question at every stop and was told that is the minimum without exception. Many places routinely pay more. Of course, that still doesn't mean that the pay isn't pretty low.
The base problem is that the only career path available is PI. Depending on the field, one PI may be bringing up as many as 15 or 20 postdocs (well, "postdoc equivalent" time) during their own time as PI. As a guess, a more normal number is perhaps 10. If you assume the number of PI positions is static, that means only one out of these 10 postdocs can ever make PI. The number of teaching positions is similarly limited (and many are better filled by new PhDs). And of course, not everybody wants to or is able to work as a PI in the first place, though they may be perfectly competent researchers at the postdoc level.
As long as we have only this path to stay in the field it's going to remain unstable and risky.
It is, of course, all part of the plot to take over America from within. I too played my part, working for Field Commander Cohen.
I know a number of places (or labs within institutes) do not stick to NIH guidelines for salaries. While most of the "bigger" institutes now stick to the NIH payscale, a lot of places dont (or throw in lower costs of living etc to justify lower salaries). A lot of places also only pay at the NIH scale minimum. So, a postdoc, even after 3-4 years of being one, may just earn $38000 a year.
And I think a lot of foreign postdocs do actually get paid less than what the NIH says they should.
I do agree though that there is a place for permanent postdocs, and there should be a structure in place to provide and pay for those jobs.
Yesterdays papers here carried a story, picked up by Seed, that illustrates the sort of dangers inherent in the current situation.
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/04/swedish_scientific_breakthroug…
I can tell you that at my two previous biology postdoc jobs, I was getting quite less than the NIH guideline. My last job was at a school that you wrote you had also interviewed (but thought that you wouldn't be able to live there, which I found understandable). Now I'm paid according to the NIH guideline, so there was a jump in my salary. (Not that it makes me rich now.)
MartinC,
Damn, that's the paper where the FT mRNA was thought to be transported from cell to cell as a messenger molecule.
All that being said the biggest problem with US post-docs is there aren't enough. None of us junior people have hired a single US post-doc, it just doesn't happen. In fact, of all my junior colleagues (meaning under 40), I can only think of one US post-doc.
Also, most places do pay NIH pay scale. I think the problem is that there really just isn't enough money in general and post-docs end up losing because of it. If I could afford it, I'd love to pay my post-docs more!
Well put. We need alternatives for all these postdocs. We need career paths where their hard work can pay off. Right now its a pyramid scheme. I also think that BTM makes a good point, the need is there for more postdocs, in fact one could argue that the lack of postdocs should have led to an increase in postdoc wages, but there isn't enough $ to go around. This could be solved by 1) increasing postdoc pay 2) create permanent postdoc positions thus giving postdocs more security, 3) increase NIH funding for postdoc hiring. By making the postdoc-hood less frightening, giving postdocs more job security and ameliorating the pyramid structure we could solve many of these problems and even attract Americans into science.
I think the NIH guidelines for salary are pretty fair, but are rarely followed. I think if a PI is paying their postdocs with an RO1 (as many are), they should be REQUIRED to follow the NIH salary guidelines. Once you pass the 2-3 year mark, the salary goes up quite a bit, which might also discourage PIs from keeping postdocs around longer than they should.
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Of course to go with that the grant money the PI receives from the NIH should go up when the pay scale gets readjusted instead of waiting for the PI to renew his/her grants.
As for fair, all I know is when I started working as a research assistant at a research university with an AB in biochemistry adjusted into today's dollars I was getting paid more than I am currently getting paid as a post-doc (at the NIH payscale). My benefits were better then as well and I worked no more than 40 hours a week (literally no more, they would get upset because they feared I would carpal tunnel syndrome). The pay has improved but still is not there yet especially given the number of hours required to work, especially if you want to start a family.