More than 90% of PhD graduates had a job in 2021

The Doctorate degree (French PhD) is the highest level of higher education degree, and about 14,000 Doctorate students pass it every year. In 2018, exactly 14,065 students received the degree and “immediately enjoyed a favourable professional integration”, since employment in France grew by 1.1% regardless of the occupational category over the course of the year following thesis defence.

Slightly less favourable general background

The information keynote from the Ministry indicates that in 2019, 484,000 jobs were created, i.e. more than in 2018 (+212,000), and that in late 2019, France registered an unemployment rate of 8.4%, “one of the lowest rates registered since 2008”.

However, because of the occurrence of the pandemic in 2020, Doctors who graduated in 2018 “did not have the opportunity to benefit from such favourable professional integration conditions”. Indeed, the French GDP dropped by 7.8%, which staggered their professional integration. But in 2021, together with the new GDP increase, about 855,000 jobs were created, exceeding pre-crisis levels and “creating integration conditions that reverted to favourable three years after passing their doctorate in 2018”. And this momentum is also supported by an important factor, as the study points out: the research programming law (law of 24 December 2020) and the actions taken in favour of recruitment and funding of research in France.

A return to normal with most jobs in research

The graduates in 2018 benefit from employment conditions similar to those of graduates in 2016.

In detail: 67% have a stable job, 96% have a management job and 95% are employed full-time. The stability of jobs differs more depending on the discipline: in life science, only 53% of doctors have a stable job. On the contrary, 71% of doctors in exact sciences and applications and 73% of doctors in sciences of society have a stable job.

Even more precisely, 62% of graduates in 2018 still work in public or private research, but the public sector is still the first employer of graduates in 2018, even though the its share slightly decreased compared with graduates in 2016. This decrease can be identified for all disciplines.

A focus on international graduates’ professional integration

The keynote mostly focuses on international graduates, and 42% of graduates in 2018 were of foreign origin, i.e. “a stable share compared with the promotion from 2016”. According to the Ministry’s keynote, in all Doctorate graduates from 2018, the professional integration share of doctors with French nationality three years after passing their degree (93%) is just slightly better than the share of foreign nationality doctors (91%).

More than half of graduate international doctors in France in 2018 work in France three years after passing their doctorate (53%), against 48% of foreign nationality doctors who graduated in France in 2016. A slight increase due to the closing of borders during the health crisis, which “staggered international mobility, and even the returns to countries of origin”.

Among foreign doctors working in France, 70% have a stable job, compared with 77% for doctors with French nationality. However, says the Ministry, “the share of manager-level jobs for doctors with non-French nationality who graduated in 2018 and working in France three years later (97%) increased by two points compared with the share of graduates from 2016, while the share the doctors with French nationality remains stable between both promotions (95%)”. In detail, 37% of doctors with non-French nationality in 2018 work in public research, and 23% in private research.