"University Type Divides Starting Salaries for New Science and Engineering Ph.D.s...Degree-granting Institution Matters More Than Major or Research Performance"

STEPI analysis... only SCIE lead-author papers are significant, working hours drive gender and workplace-type gaps

The starting salary of new science and engineering Ph.D. holders is influenced more by where they obtained their doctorate than by their individual research performance. Although major field and whether the field is designated as a national strategic technology also had an impact, an empirical analysis found that the type of university was the most powerful determinant.

The Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) announced on the 25th that it has published Issue No. 355 of “STEPI Insight,” which systematically analyzes the factors that determine the salaries of newly graduated science and engineering Ph.D. holders. The report categorizes a variety of variables, including major field, degree track, research performance, and type of workplace, and empirically verifies how they affect initial salaries.

Cover of 'Science and Technology Policy Institute Insight', Issue No. 355. Provided by the Science and Technology Policy Institute.

According to the report, among the statistically significant factors in salary determination, university type exerted the greatest influence. This was followed by major field and the share of SCIE-level papers for which the individual was the lead author, which were found to have relatively strong effects. In contrast, the total number of papers, patent applications, and experience in industry-academia collaboration showed no statistically significant relationship with salary.

In terms of major field and structural factors, whether the field falls under national strategic technologies and whether the individual completed an integrated master’s and doctoral program also affected salary. However, moving between different types of universities from bachelor’s to doctoral studies (an experience reported by about 42.9% of respondents) did not lead to any additional salary premium. The analysis concludes that the type of university where the doctorate is obtained functions as the key variable determining salary level.

A comparison using different methods of measuring wages also yielded notable findings. When average monthly wages and hourly wages were analyzed together, a substantial portion of the wage gap by gender and workplace type was explained by differences in working hours. This implies that simple comparisons of monthly pay alone cannot fully account for structural differences.

Lee Seungyoon, Associate Research Fellow at STEPI, said, “Doctoral programs in science and engineering require long-term, high-cost human capital investment from both individuals and the state,” adding, “Diagnosing how the labor market compensates for this investment is the starting point for policy design.” He went on to emphasize, “There is a need to design tailored policies across multiple dimensions, including university type, major field, gender, and workplace type.”

The report presents several policy implications: narrowing competitiveness gaps through specialization strategies by university type; reviewing the alignment of national strategic technology designation policies with labor market conditions; strengthening policy attention to the structural wage disadvantage in natural science fields; and confirming the existence of wage premiums for leading research achievements.

However, the analysis has limitations in that it is based on cross-sectional data from a single point in time in 2022. The research team plans to conduct follow-up studies using panel data from a forthcoming tracking survey of science and engineering Ph.D. holders, in order to more precisely analyze the causal relationships among wage-determining factors and to track changes in compensation along different career paths.