More and more empirical studies address doctoral candidates' health. Yet, the mechanisms linking supervision and doctoral candidates' health often remain unclear. We start to fill this research gap with classifications of supervisors produced by latent class analysis, which were introduced into structural equation models with motivation towards…

This article contributes to the growing evidence based on well-being in doctoral study. It draws on 35 qualitative, in-depth interviews to explore how the well-being of an understudied group--working doctoral student mothers--is affected when undertaking part-time PhDs. While there is a growing literature on the research student experience and an…

Whilst China has become home to the second largest doctoral education system in the world, with over 20% of its doctoral graduates taking up postdoctoral researcher positions inside and outside of China, a lack of information regarding the expectations of these doctoral graduates in pursuing postdocs has resulted in a failure to meet their…

Fresh PhD recipients are experiencing restricted career opportunities yet the enrolment of PhD Scholars is increasing rapidly. Perhaps, doctoral students lack conscious educational decision-making. Building on such a perspective of doctoral students' unconscious educational choices, we explored their educational choices throughout their life…

Drawing on interviews with nine PhD students and twelve PhD graduates from a research university in Taiwan, this paper explores students' motivational profiles for pursuing a PhD at a time when that degree is increasingly decoupled from academic employment. Using self-determination theory as a conceptual lens, the paper identifies common enrolment…

Are public policies effective in enhancing gender balance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate education? Although the literature is rich in studies that prescribe micro-level interventions to promote gender balance in specific STEM areas or institutions, there are surprisingly few studies that quantitatively…

How does studying in the United States affect Chinese doctoral engineering graduates' career decisions? The present study is based on semi-structured interviews with 16 Chinese engineering graduates who completed their doctorates in the United States, focusing on two critical aspects of their career decisions: returning to China and pursuing…

This study investigates career trajectory and work locations of doctoral students trained in Macao and analyses how their career paths are shaped by perceived macro-level factors. Respondents from four applied disciplinary areas were selected for semi-structured in-depth interviews. Research results show that doctoral students who graduated from…

Much of the scholarship on employment and career pathways of PhD graduates has examined the issues, including pre-doctoral experiences, quality of doctoral education, networking and career choices across different sectors; however, contextual environmental factors have been generally overlooked. This study aims to explore the academic career…

While extensive research addresses the working conditions of international Ph.D. students in Western countries, only little explores their experiences within Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. CEE countries favour masculine values, hierarchical structures and conservatism, and English does not serve as a primary language in both…

Rising unemployment rates among PhDs gave relevance to a crisis narrative revolving around the assumed oversupply of doctorate holders. The discourse, which originated in established systems of higher education two decades ago, has not been duly tested in the Global South. Taking Tunisia as a case in point, this article probes the validity of the…

This paper addresses the perceptions and mechanisms of doctoral student job decisions regarding the pursuit of careers in the government sector in China. Through the lens of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), we analysed 30 semi-structured interviews that had been conducted with doctoral students from two prestigious Chinese universities who…

This study investigates the employment landscape and career expectations of doctoral graduates in Japan through the analysis of three national surveys conducted in 2012, 2015 and 2018. The research explores the changing factors influencing graduates' employment destinations during this period, encompassing changes by discipline and proposing…

Departmental academic support plays an important role in a doctoral journey. However, different types of support may be related to different outcomes. This paper aims to provide a categorisation of types of departmental academic support and analyse the relationship between these different categories of support and doctoral students' confidence…

Searching for an academic position is known to be a stressful and often ambiguous process for applicants. During this transition from doctoral students to assistant professors, applicants seek any additional means to increase their chances of securing an academic appointment. This research draws on data gathered from a sample of recently hired…