Chasing the academic dream: Biased beliefs and scientific labor markets

We investigate whether biased beliefs play a role in the persistent demand for postdoc-toral training in science. We elicit the beliefs and career preferences of doctoral students at 56 U.S. chemistry departments through a survey combined with a field experiment, in which we randomize the provision of information to a subset of respondents on histori-cal academic placements by department. We first show that respondents have excessively optimistic beliefs about their own and their peers' chances of obtaining a tenure track fac-ulty position. Respondents who received the historical placement information treatment updated their beliefs about their own likelihood of obtaining a faculty position in a follow-up survey one year later, particularly those who had the most biased initial beliefs. How-ever, we do not find an effect on the likelihood of doing a post-doc at four years post -intervention.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This study investigates the persistent demand for postdoctoral training in science and whether biased beliefs contribute to it. Through a survey and field experiment, the study reveals that respondents have overly optimistic beliefs about their own and their peers' chances of obtaining a tenure track faculty position. The provision of historical placement information has an effect on respondents' beliefs about their own likelihood of obtaining a faculty position, particularly for those who initially held the most biased beliefs. However, there is no effect on the likelihood of doing a post-doc at four years post-intervention.