Drowning in the shallows: an Australian study of the PhD experience of wellbeing

The Quiet Crisis of PhDs and COVID-19: Reaching the financial tipping point.

“…An Australian national thinktank noted that PhD students are frequently a source of "unpaid or lowly-paid research-labour" (Norton et al 2018). Studies show that research students often feel compelled to undertake unpaid or low-paid work outside of their core research (Cressey 2012), to improve their chances of gaining increasingly rare academic positions (Beasy et al 2019). The result of systematically facilitating nancially precarious behaviour results in a contribution of free or inexpensive labour to the research community.…”

“…Speci c research into doctoral studies evidences experiences marred by isolation, high anxiety, severe depression, and other psychiatric disorders (Evans et al 2018;Levecque et al 2017;Virtanen et al 2017;Woolston 2019) as well as increased physical health impacts (Kernan et al 2011;Juniper et al 2012). Less research has been conducted on the nancial instability of doctoral candidates and how that impacts their ability to complete their degree, though this work is growins (Sverdlik et al 2018;Gururaj et al 2010;Beasy et al 2019; Ampaw and Jaeger 2012).…”

Doctoral employability: A systematic literature review and research agenda

“…While there are likely many other studies that refer to broader notions of post-graduation work for doctoral candidates, our focus was to explore the literature that was primarily related to employability, not literature which considered employability among a wide range of other variables (e.g. Beasy et al, 2019;Crawford & Probert, 2017). Within this frame, we excluded conference papers, book chapters, and books, along with those papers not available in English.…”

“…We posit the introduction of a carefully mapped stakeholder network at national and international discipline levels could facilitate a clearer understanding of the true needs of flourishing for candidates during their experience, while meeting institutional requirements, and future industry needs. This is not an impetus from industry or higher education institutions alone, with candidates called upon to take control of their experience (Beasy et al, 2019). Establishment of shared expectations is needed early in the candidature to clarify what is the desired outcome of the program for the candidate, and for the institution.…”

The Quiet Crisis of PhDs and COVID-19: Reaching the financial tipping point.

“…Speci c research into doctoral studies evidences experiences marred by isolation, high anxiety, severe depression, and other psychiatric disorders (Evans et al 2018;Levecque et al 2017;Virtanen et al 2017;Woolston 2019) as well as increased physical health impacts (Kernan et al 2011;Juniper et al 2012). Less research has been conducted on the nancial instability of doctoral candidates and how that impacts their ability to complete their degree, though this work is growing (Sverdlik et al 2018;Gururaj et al 2010;Beasy et al 2019; Ampaw and Jaeger 2012).…”