It’s really not a surprise that many choose to apply their research training elsewhere… just look at the pay and conditions of post-docs in the UK. It’s actually amazing so many stay in academia.
Real tell about what’s happening is % women with kids in fraction that leave vs fraction that stay. Basically extremely difficult to continue in academia or decently paid industry as a woman with kids
Isn't that dispersion a good thing? We need more scientists and engineers in other parts of society - and certainly in the civil service (since privatisation of so many PSREs) and politics for better-informed policy-making.
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The culture tends to perpetuate that the academic route is the only true “success”, and that’s a problem.
That doesn’t excuse the overuse of postdocs as cheap labor with no stable career path.
The system is set up to overproduce postdocs, the incentives for that haven’t changed. So this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
It’s not ness a bad thing if not all are doing research, PhD’s are useful in other places.