The unhappy postdoc: a survey based study

<ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Background:</ns4:bold> The emerging public discourse about the “broken” postdoc system is mostly conceptual. The current work offers an attempt to quantify postdocs’ perceptions, goals, and well-being. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Methods:</ns4:bold> A survey of 190 postdocs in North America. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Results:</ns4:bold> This article first reveals a surprisingly unhappy postdoc community with low satisfaction with life scores. Second, it demonstrates how over the course of the fellowship many postdocs lose interest in the goal of pursuing a tenure track academic position (~20%) or in recommending the postdoc track to others (~30%). Finally, we find that among a large number of factors that can enhance satisfaction with life for postdocs (e.g., publication productivity, resources available to them) only one factor stood out as significant: the degree to which atmosphere in the lab is pleasant and collegial. </ns4:p> <ns4:p> <ns4:bold>Conclusions:</ns4:bold> Our findings can stimulate policy, managerial, and career development improvements in the context of the postdoc system. </ns4:p>