Timeline for How many quit mathematics because they (are afraid that they) can not find a permanent job?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Apr 1, 2017 at 22:06 | comment | added | paul garrett | @NikitaKalinin, it is surely somewhat larger than (x-tenures)/x: quite a few people do wait to find themselves unemployed on a schedule beyond their control, but pre-emptively create a more secure situation. Two-body issues, issues of not wanting to endure geographic randomness, needing to have security for kids, cohabiting with partner (!), and such. Quite a few of my PhD students have made choices for such external reasons, ... not at all that they didn't like math or wouldn't have wanted to "go for it" if conditions were otherwise. The old monastic model is no longer relevant. | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 22:01 | comment | added | Nikita Kalinin | @JosephO'Rourke I agree, it is better than nothing. But there could be another data: starting from online-surveys and ending some articles of sociologists, studying mathematicians. I remember back in Switzerland that some universities had surveys where they asked also about such types of questions (regarding anxiety, though). | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:58 | comment | added | Nikita Kalinin | @paulgarrett Sure. There are also possibilities to move to another country. etc. So you think that if x is the number of people who have done at least one postdoc, then the answer is (x-#tenures)/x ? | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:43 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @NikitaKalinin: The precise question you ask is surely not addressed in any survey or annually collected data. So one must infer as much as possible from what data is available. | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:43 | comment | added | paul garrett | @NikitaKalinin, I do not have stats at hand, but it has been apparent for some years that there are simply not as many tenure-track jobs as people working in postdocs. One either finds that one has no further up-scale academic job, or anticipates that situation and looks elsewhere. | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:40 | comment | added | Nikita Kalinin | thank you, but this speaks nothing about why did they do this and what happens then. Many people quit research mathematics after 1 or 2 postdocs | |
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:33 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Apr 1, 2017 at 21:29 | history | answered | Joseph O'Rourke | CC BY-SA 3.0 |