Embarking on the postdoc journey: Unveiling Chinese doctoral graduates' expectations and experiences

Abstract

Whilst China has become home to the second largest doctoral education system in the world, with over 20% of its doctoral graduates taking up postdoctoral researcher positions inside and outside of China, a lack of information regarding the expectations of these doctoral graduates in pursuing postdocs has resulted in a failure to meet their expectations, leading to insufficient institutional support for their career development. In order to improve this situation and provide more tailored institutional support for Chinese postdocs, we conducted interviews with 30 doctoral graduates from elite Chinese universities from February 2020 to December 2021 to understand their expectations for and experiences of postdocs. The data identified four expected-to-accumulated capitals during postdoc experiences: personal scientific capital, discipline-related social capital, institution-related social capital and family-related social capital. Among these, the primary consideration for engaging in postdocs is to enhance personal scientific capital in both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Chinese doctoral graduates who choose domestic postdocs have higher expectations for increasing institution-based social capital, while those who go abroad expect to develop discipline-related social capital within the international academic community. Understanding these expectations will be instrumental in developing optimal approaches to providing institutional support for the career development of Chinese postdocs.