Wage differences among Ph.D.s by area of knowledge: are science areas better paid than humanities and social ones? The Spanish case

Abstract

This paper analyses wage differences among workers with doctoral studies depending on their specialised area of knowledge (humanities and social studies or science) and on their type of job (university teacher or other professional activity). Traditionally, science-related activities have been associated with higher wages than humanities and social studies ones due to the fact that the market tends to value higher the productivity of disciplines considered to be sciences. By estimating an endogenous switching model and applying the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we have observed the existence of a positive wage difference in favour of Ph.D.s of humanities or social studies for university teachers, and for the Ph.D.s of science in other professions.

Misusing our talent? Overeducation, overskilling and skill underutilisation among Spanish PhD graduates

“…These results are similar to those obtained for college graduates. Even though we used a different measure of mismatch, our results are also consistent with findings obtained by Heywood (2009, 2011) for US PhD holders, as well as with the evidence for Spain reported by Canal and Rodríguez (2013). Also using panel data, Frenette (2004) did not detect a substantial wage penalty among overeducated Canadian PhD holders.…”

Factors determining the career success of doctorate holders: evidence from the Spanish case

“…This effect is stronger in the case of women, which may be due to a composition effect in the sample of women. As noted by Canal and Rodríguez (2012), the number of women training for PhDs in science has been increasing progressively since the mid 1990s, and by 2006 women account for more half of new doctorates. The values of the coefficients of the gender variable in the estimations by field of knowledge provide support for this argument.…”

“…The driving force behind this change was the higher expected salaries compared to those in the universities. Also with the same database, Canal and Rodríguez (2012) find that holders of PhDs in sciences earn higher salaries when they work outside the universities, whereas the opposite is true for those with doctorates in humanities and social sciences. García, Más and Polo (2010) analyse the determinants of private companies' demand for PhDs in Spain and identify three main factors, namely the degree of cooperation between the private sector and the universities, the intensity of research and development activity in the firm, and certain firm characteristics including size, sector of activity, age and average salary.…”

“…With this same dataset, Canal and Rodríguez (2012) analyse these differences in depth, finding that science PhDs have an advantage in terms of salaries. 6.…”

“…However, the differences in perceptions of success decrease as we move along the income distribution. As highlighted by Canal and Rodríguez (2012), university professors carry out their activity in a legally regulated context where there are upper limits to their professional careers, leading to possibly lower motivation at higher income levels. 12 This may explain the estimated negative sign on seniority in Table 3.…”