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• 26 October 2022

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Caught between academic calling and academic pressure? Working time characteristics, time pressure and time sovereignty predict PhD students’ research engagement

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• Published: 08 September 2023
• Volume 87 , pages 1885–1904, ( 2024 )

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• Theun Pieter van Tienoven   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1532-254X 1 ,
• Anaïs Glorieux   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8127-792X 1 ,
• Joeri Minnen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7494-2004 1 &
• Bram Spruyt   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0573-724X 1  

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PhD students come to work in academic environments that are characterized by long working hours and work done on non-standard hours due to increasing job demands and metric evaluation systems. Yet their long working hours and work at non-standard hours are often seen as a logical consequence of their intellectual quest and academic calling and may even serve as a proxy for their research engagement. Against that background, quantitative data from 514 PhD students were used to unravel the complex relationships between different aspects of time use and PhD students’ work engagement. While the results support the academia as a calling thesis to some extent, they also show that the relationships between long and non-standard working hours and research engagement are partly negated by the fact that the same working time characteristics lead to perceived time pressure and lack of time sovereignty, which in turn negatively affects their engagement. Moreover, the mechanism behind this negation varies across scientific disciplines. These subjective working time characteristics are the same alarm signals that are flagged as risk factors in academic staff for occupational stress, burnout, and work-life imbalance and thus cannot be ignored.

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Introduction

Occupational stress in (early career) academics as a result of long working hours, non-standard work, the managerialism of work, and stressors outside the workplace is well documented in the academic literature (Lee et al., 2022 ; Sabagh et al., 2018 ; Watts and Robertson, 2011 ). PhD students, however, are hardly included in the occupational group of academics, presumably due to the lack of clarity about their employment situation (Flora, 2007 ). PhD scholarships are often fiscally exempted. Consequently, PhD students with university, external, or personal funds, or when hired as graduate teaching assistants, sign scholarship agreements which are not fully comparable to an employment contract. As a result, PhD students are much more often evaluated in terms of their motivation to pursue a PhD (Naylor et al., 2016 ; Skakni, 2018 ) and the obstacles, challenges, and hurdles they encounter on their ‘perilous journey’ (Woolston, 2019 , 2022 ). Similar, the assessment of their workload is often made in terms of combining a teaching assignment with doctoral research (Borrego et al., 2021 ; Muzaka, 2009 ) or being used as cheap labour for several research tasks (Zhao et al., 2007 ). The most specific hard numbers regarding PhD students’ time use and occupational stress come from the 2022 Nature Graduate Survey in which 43.1% of PhD students worldwide report working on average 50 h per week or more. Around 40% is not or not at all satisfied with their working hours, and almost half mentions their work/life balance in the top three of the most challenging issues when conducting PhD research (Nature Research, 2022 ). To the best of our knowledge, working hours of PhD students are seldom evaluated beyond these proxies. This is a knowledge gap: time use is a multidimensional phenomenon including more than how long PhD students work (i.e. duration), but also when they work (i.e. timing of work) or how work is embedded in their daily lives (i.e. sequence of work and other activities) (Zerubavel, 1985 ). Moreover, these temporal aspects of working time can give rise to experiences such as time pressure or time sovereignty. Such experiences result from the combination of objective characteristics of time use and the expectations regarding these characteristics. Only by documenting these different aspects of time use and subsequently unravelling their mutual relationships with regard to outcomes can scientists get a deep understanding of the relevance of working time characteristics for PhD students. This contribution aims to address this lacune in scientific knowledge by assessing objective and subjective working time characteristics and associating them with PhD students’ engagement in their PhD research.

This paper focusses on PhD students. However, due to the lack of thorough studies on working hours specific to PhD students, we first describe the characteristics of the working environment (i.e. academia) in which they conduct their research. This gives us a better grasp of the relevant aspects of working time characteristics and their association with work engagement.

Long working hours and weekend work in academia result from high academic job demands (Anderson, 2006 ; Kinman and Jones, 2008 ). Several challenges have been reported to contribute to increasing job demands. The need to balance teaching demands and research workload is a considerable challenge that can lead to role conflict (Sabagh et al., 2018 ) and time conflict (Tham and Holland, 2018 ). This is further aggravated by ‘corporatisation’ (Holmwood, 2014 ) or the ‘managerialism phenomenon’ (Erickson et al., 2021 ; Lee et al., 2022 ) which signifies universities’ high performance-based management focussed on high academic productivity and metric-driven performance markers. Consequently, academics report an increasing workload as well as an increase in the need to work outside contractual hours to meet work requirements (Fetherston et al., 2021 ; Houston et al., 2006 ; Kinman and Jones, 2008 ).

The excess working hours result in a ‘work-life merge’ which, according to a study by Fetherston et al. ( 2021 ), is largely considered necessary by academics to meet increasing job demands in the first place and a major cause of time pressure (Watts and Robertson, 2011 ). This undermines the idea of flexible working hours which has been suggested to be helpful to academic parents (Jakubiec, 2015 ). It also conflicts with the idea of the ‘academic calling’, i.e. academia being a vital part of who one is, where long working days are not experienced as such (Fetherston et al., 2021 ). In fact, high job demands, increasing workload, and work-life merge contribute to occupational stress (Lee et al., 2022 ), burnout (Sabagh et al., 2018 ), and severe disruption of work-life balance (Ashencaen Crabtree et al., 2021 ; Kinman and Jones, 2008 ). On the contrary, a well-balanced teaching load and research time are associated with significantly lower levels of emotional exhaustion (Gonzalez and Bernard, 2006 ). Similarly, a review by Sabagh et al. ( 2018 ) finds that engagement—the energetic and effective connection with one’s work (Schaufeli et al., 2006a )—can serve as buffer for the negative consequences of the increasing academic job demands. The above arguments further underscore that if we study the relevance of time allocation in academia, we should not only focus on its objective characteristics (e.g. number of hours) but also how these are experienced.

• PhD students

PhD students represent a particular and vulnerable academic group, not only because they are the lowest in the academic hierarchy, but also because their status as employee is not always clear (Flora, 2007 ). Their scholarships are often fiscally exempted, and scholarship agreements do not always fully correspond to the rights and benefits of employment contracts. More importantly, their progress and successful completion are highly dependent on the support they receive from their supervisor (Heath, 2002 ; Lee, 2008 ). Research shows that ultimately supervisors’ support is more important than their academic qualities in achieving a PhD (Dericks et al., 2019 ). However, it is precisely these academic qualities that supervisors are (increasingly) judged on in metric output-oriented academia (e.g. citation score, number of publications, amount and type of project funding, number of MA and PhD students under their supervision). There is ample reason to belief that the above-mentioned increasing job demands are reflected upon PhD students as well.

The existing research supports the latter assumption. PhD students across all scientific disciplines sometimes come into contact with exploitative supervisor behaviour (Zhao et al., 2007 ). This seems particularly true for graduate teaching assistants. Their increasing teaching load shifts the balance between teaching duties and research time even further resulting in substantial time pressure and a low expectation of obtaining their PhD at all (Glorieux et al., forthcoming ). In contexts where the teaching load is much more distributed amongst all PhD students, such as in the Netherlands and the UK (Park and Ramos, 2002 ; Sonneveld and Tigchelaar, 2009 ), the pressure is partly relieved for the specific group of teaching assistants. PhD students’ scholarship status, as opposed to employment status, means that completing their PhD trajectory is often studied in terms of motivational characteristics such as an intellectual quest or self-actualization (Naylor et al., 2016 ; Skakni, 2018 ). Such individualistic lens, however, neglects the relevance of the more structural characteristics of their work environment and how PhD students cope with them. As a result, not much knowledge exists on PhD students’ working hour characteristics. This contribution aims to provide an impetus to close this knowledge gap.

Additionally, it seems that working conditions of academics in (bio)medical sciences and sciences disciplines are traditionally more vocalized in scientific journals. This was once more demonstrated when discussing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (see discussion in Van Tienoven et al., 2022 ). Although all disciplines face increasing job demands due to metric-driven productivity evaluations, each discipline comes with its particular characteristics of doing PhD research that impact working time.

Human sciences, for example, are characterized by more individual work. PhD students in these disciplines usually have to come up with their own research project. To secure their own funding, they have to write grant proposals (Torka, 2018 ) or—more than PhD students in other disciplines—take on teaching tasks (Groenvynck et al., 2011 ). Doctoral research in the human sciences is often quite isolated, in the sense that the PhD student is the only person that is appointed to the project (Torka, 2018 ), which could increase the pressure to get everything done. In addition, participating in public debates and writing commissioned reports—more common in the human sciences—can reduce the time they can spend on their PhD research. All this makes the development of a research plan with clear milestones and deadlines all the more important, as organic teamwork usually does not occur.

This is different in the natural sciences, where PhD students are usually part of a larger research team (Larivière, 2012 ; Torka, 2018 ) and usually receive more financial support through departmental programmes (Sverdlik et al., 2018 ). These PhD students often do not have their own individual projects but are responsible for part of a collective project. For example, PhD students in the natural sciences are more dependent on external factors (e.g. the progress of other people’s work, the availability of labs and equipment). As a result, the planning of their project depends on mutual agreements, and they often have much less control over the exact timing (Torka, 2018 ).

The above-mentioned differences in experience and needs with regard to the organization of working time lead to assess the potential moderating role of the scientific discipline for the relationships that we study.

Working time indicators

From the above, it becomes clear that working time can be conceptualised based on objective and subjective indicators. Objective then relates to calculable indicators such as the number of working hours, the times worked on non-standard hours, and the composition of the workload. In this study, objective time indicators are the number of working hours, the frequency of evening and weekend work, and the balance between teaching duties and research time. Yet following the ‘academic calling’ hypothesis, long working hours or working on non-standard work as such are not necessarily an issue for academics with high engagement in their work (Sabagh et al., 2018 ). For the latter, working long hours may be a means towards self-actualization. This, again, underscores the importance of including indicators of working time which tap into how working time is experienced such as the extent to which the workload and work-life merge lead to the feeling of constantly being pressed for time (Watts and Robertson, 2011 ) or the feeling of having no control or authority over one’s own time (Ashencaen Crabtree et al., 2021 ; Kinman and Jones, 2008 ).

Time pressure does not arise solely from having too little time but is also related to the aspirations that individuals have and the normative expectations that they experience to use their time (Kleiner, 2014 ). The latter are external to the individual and arise from the normative structures of their work environment. To measure the subjective experience of being pressed for time, we use an item scale that simultaneously gauges the feeling of not having enough time, the feeling of aspiring more than can be done in the current timeframe, and the feeling that normative expectations weigh too heavy on the allocation of time.

Additionally, the use of time is not limited to the work environment. We constantly face demands from different life spheres including our work life but, for example, also our family life and social life. The extent to which we can align these demands in function of our priorities and values depends on the extent to which we experience autonomy over our own time (Southerton, 2020 ). A lack of time sovereignty hampers setting boundaries and prioritizing activities that are meaningful and, thus, might result in an unhealthy integration of different life spheres.

In this study, we not only assess the relevance of these subjective indicators of working time, but also to what extent these indicators mediate the relationship between objective characteristics of time use and the outcome.

In summary, in this contribution, we analyse the objective and subjective working time indicators of PhD students and relate these characteristics to PhD students’ engagement in their doctoral research. The latter is a well-known predictor of the journey or intellectual quest in doctoral research. We assume that the ‘academic calling’ hypothesis holds for PhD students. However, we also acknowledge that once the number of working hours, the work done on non-standard hours, and the composition of the workload take the upper hand, issues such as time pressure and lack of time sovereignty come into play. We will test the hypothesis that the positive direct effect (i.e. the academic calling) is partially offset by a negative indirect effect that runs along indicators of subjective working time. Acknowledging potential differences in scientific disciplines, we also investigate to what extent we conclude differently on the hypothesis for different scientific disciplines.

Data and method

Data come from the 2022 PhD Survey held at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium ( n  = 836; response rate = 45.4%). This annual survey is commissioned by the Researcher Training & Development Office (RTDO) at the VUB and conducted by the Research Group TOR (Tempus Omnia Revelat) at the same university. The PhD Survey serves as a monitor instrument to evaluate the support provided to PhD students by RTDO and at the same time monitors aspects of well-being and job satisfaction of PhD students. As a result, the strength of the data lies in the heterogeneity of PhD students surveyed. PhD students across all disciplines, regardless of their teaching duties and funding nature (i.e. external scientific, internal scientific, industry, teaching assistant, personal funds, unfunded) are included.

The 2022 survey is the fifth wave of the annual PhD Survey since it piloted in 2017. All PhD students registered at VUB on the 1st of January preceding the launch of the next wave are invited. Typically, PhD students start in October or November, but it is possible to start at any time of the academic year. Doctoral research typically lasts for 4 years and ends with a successful oral defence of the thesis.

The PhD Survey exists of a single online questionnaire that is hosted on the data collection platform MOTUS and accessible through the MOTUS web application. Footnote 1 The PhD Survey takes place in the last 2 weeks of April and the whole month of May. PhD students across all faculties receive an email with login credentials to participate in the survey. Up to two reminders are sent. PhD students are explicitly asked to give their consent before starting the questionnaire. The design of the study was approved by the ethics committee of the VUB (file number ECHW_318).

Institutional context

The VUB is located in the Brussels Capital Region in Belgium. In the academic year 2020–2021, just over 20,000 students were enrolled in 172 study programmes of which almost one third is taught in English. About 10% of all students are enrolled in PhD programmes. To be admitted to these programmes, PhD students can rely on different funding opportunities, such as general or themed scholarships from (inter)national funding institutions (e.g. the National Research Council), research funding from a research project or multiple research projects in the name of the supervisor, or by combining PhD research with a position as graduate teaching assistant (GTA).

At the start, PhD students enroll in the compulsory Doctoral Training Programme which facilitates PhD students with the possibility to develop their (research) skills through, for example, courses, seminars, workshops, and career coaching. There are three different doctoral schools under which all faculties are divided. The Doctoral School of Natural Sciences and (Bioscience) Engineering (NSE) includes the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and the Faculty of Sciences and Biosciences Engineering. The Doctoral School of Human Sciences (DSh) includes the Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School, the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, and the Faculty of Law and Criminology. The Doctoral School of Life Science and Medicine (LSM) includes the Faculty of Medical Sciences and Pharmacy and the Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy.

All PhD students are expected to engage in teaching for at most 20% of their time, except GTAs, who are expected to engage in teaching for at most 40% of their time. PhD students, including GTAs, are expected to use the remaining time for their research aimed at obtaining their PhD. Their doctoral research typically lasts for 4 years, or 6 years in case of GTAs, and ends with a successful oral defence of the thesis. Within Flanders, the Dutch-speaking community in Belgium and responsible for Dutch-language education, education is fairly equal. This also applies to the doctoral training. Universities apply equal admission conditions, and prestige differences between universities are much smaller than those known from Anglo-Saxon countries. Most doctoral students receive a similar salary. The universities in Flanders work in roughly the same way, which means that our findings can be extended to the Flemish context.

Explanatory variables

For the explanatory variables, we distinguish between objective and subjective indicators of working time. Objective means here that characteristics of the working time are questioned based on commonly shared and recognizable time indicators (e.g. the number of working hours, worked/not worked between 8 pm and 12 am). The answers to these questions remain the respondents’ estimates. Subjective means here that it concerns experienced characteristics of working time (e.g. experienced time pressure). They include a clear level of appreciation and result from the confrontation of the expected aspects of working time and its actual characteristics. The objective time indicators are the following.

Total working time. Estimated total working time in hours per week (scaled).

Share of non-research time . Expressed as a percentage and calculated as one minus the estimated time spent on research over the estimated total working time in hours per week. Outliers for time estimates are set at mean ± 1.5 times the interquartile range.

Non-standard working hours. A summation scale (ranging from 0 to 10) of the items ‘Work in evening (after 6 pm)’, ‘Work at night (after midnight)’, ‘Work on Saturday)’, and ‘Work on Sunday’ that were answered using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always. A principal component analysis revealed one component with Eigenvalue = 2.494 and 62.3% of variance explained. Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.796, and the correlation between the factor score and summation score equals r  > 0.99.

The subjective time indicators are the following.

Experienced time pressure . Experienced time pressure is measured by a summation scale (ranging from 0 to 10) of the items ‘Too much is expected of me’, ‘I never catch up with my work’, ‘I never have time for myself’, ‘There are not enough hours in the day for me’, ‘I frequently have to cancel arrangements I have made’, ‘I have to do more than I want to do’, ‘I have no time to do the things I have to do’, and ‘More is expected from me than I can handle’ using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = totally agree (Van Tienoven et al., 2017 ). A principal component analysis revealed one component with Eigenvalue = 4.661 and 58.3% of variance explained. Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.895, and the correlation between the factor score and summation score equals r  > 0.99.

Experienced lack of time sovereignty. Experienced lack of time sovereignty is measured by an inverted summation scale (ranging from 0 to 10) of the items ‘I have enough influence on my working hours’, ‘I can adjust my working time to my family life’, ‘I have ample opportunities to take time off whenever that suits me’, and ‘The VUB/my supervisor offers sufficient opportunities for employees to adjust their tasks depending on their private situation’ that were answered using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = totally agree. A principal component analysis revealed one component with Eigenvalue = 2.577 and 64.4% of variance explained. Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.814, and the correlation between the factor score and summation score equals r  > 0.99.

Dependent variable

Most PhD students receive a grant, which means that their employment status is not always clear (Flora, 2007 ). Nevertheless, they end up in a professional work environment with job demands and responsibilities expected of an employee; the most important of which is conducting research. To measure the extent of engagement in PhD research , we therefore use the validated 9-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) in combination with three items that measure intrinsic motivation, which is also specific to the scholarship status of PhD students (Skakni, 2018 ). The UWES-9 measures vigour, dedication, and absorption based on three items per aspect of work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2006b ). The items are the following: ‘At my job, I feel like bursting with energy’, ‘At my job, I feel strong and vigorous’, and ‘When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work’ for vigour; ‘I am immersed in my work’, ‘I get carried away when I’m working’, ‘I am happy when I’m working intensely’ for absorption; and ‘I am enthusiastic about my job’, ‘I am proud of the work that I do’, ‘My job inspires me’ for dedication. The UWES-9 scale has demonstrated high internal consistency and validity (Schaufeli et al., 2006a ). Previous work with this scale revealed that people who score high on the work engagement scale, score lower on aspects of burnout, report lower levels of depression and distress, and score higher on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. High scores on the work engagement scale also correlate positively with job characteristics such as autonomy, performance feedback, and task variety (for a discussion, see Saks and Gruman, 2014 ).

Unlike most paid work, the PhD track has a clear finality that is motivated professionally, intellectually, or by a desire for self-actualization (Skakni, 2018 ). In social cognitive theory, this intrinsic motivation reflects the willingness and interest to pursue efforts and thus engage oneself in PhD research (Gu et al., 2017 ). To measure the specificity of engagement in PhD research in a more meaningful and relevant way, we therefore add three additional items that explicitly measure the intrinsic motivation to pursue a PhD. At the same time, this brings the construct of engagement more in line with the idea of an academic calling. The added items are the following: ‘I can make the world a better place with the work that I do’, ‘I’m helping science move forward with the work that I do’, and ‘I improve things with the work that I do’. All items were answered using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 = I never have this feeling to 4 = I always have this feeling. Engagement is then measured based on a summation scale (ranging from 0 to10). A principal component analysis revealed one component with Eigenvalue = 6.076 and 50.6% of variance explained. Cronbach’s alpha equals 0.908, and the correlation between the factor score and summation score equals r  > 0.99.

Control variables

Given that the work-life merge is of much more concern for female academics (Toffoletti and Starr, 2016 ) and female academics are reported to be more vulnerable to the negative consequences of increasing job demands than male academics (Watts and Robertson, 2011 ), we control for sex using a dummy for female. Due to small numbers, PhD students that identify themselves as non-binary are omitted from the data ( n  = 3).

Where in Anglo-Saxon countries, the form of funding (e.g. fellowship, research assistant, teaching assistant) influences the amount of time available for research (Grote et al., 2021 ), the allocation of PhD students’ time over teaching and research is much more formally arranged in northwestern continental Europe. Acknowledging that research skills might be enhanced by teaching experience (Jucks and Hillbrink, 2017 ) and protecting PhD students from becoming means to mitigate increasing teaching demands, contracts in Belgium stipulate that PhD students are not expected to spend more than 20% of their time on teaching (e.g. guest lectures, grading, BA or MA thesis supervision). For GTAs, this is 40%. However, both regular PhD students and GTAs often indicate that when they also include preparation for teaching, they often spend much more time on it than expected (Machette, 2021 ). This applies in particular to younger PhD students. Since PhD students, regardless of their funding type, are expected to teach, we use a dummy variable to control for whether teaching exceeds contractual hours . PhD students estimated their weekly time spent on teaching activities in the PhD Survey. Outliers were set at over 38 h per week (i.e. the equivalent of a fulltime workweek). If the ratio time spent teaching over total working time exceeded 20% (or 40% in case of GTAs), PhD students are considered to teach more than contractually stipulated.

Analysis plan

We apply structural equation modelling in R with the lavaan package (Rosseel, 2012 ) to investigate whether and how objective and subjective indicators of working time associate with engagement in PhD research. First, an overall path model is fitted for the entire sample. Next, we aim to explore whether these associations vary by scientific discipline. Therefore, we stratify the models by doctoral schools at the VUB.

Model fit will be determined based on Chi-square, CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR. Cut-off points for fit measures are set following Hu and Bentler ( 1999 ): CFI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.07, and SRMS < 0.05. The model fit statistics assess to what extent the patterns identified in this sample can be generalized to the underlying population. As the PhD survey is an annual survey, an alternative and arguably stricter test regarding the stability and generality of our models entails that we re-estimate our model on different samples. Therefore, in the Supplementary Material Appendix, Table A1, we provide the results for the data from the 2021 and 2020 edition of the PhD survey. These analyses confirmed the substantive conclusions derived from the analysis of the 2022 data. We test the equality of regression coefficients using Wald’s z -test (Paternoster et al., 1998 ). Table 1 shows the characteristics for the total sample and stratified by doctoral schools.

PhD students score 6.3 on 10 for their engagement in their PhD research, and this does not vary across doctoral schools nor does their score for working on non-standard hours (3.6 on 10). PhD students spend on average a third of their time on other tasks than their PhD research. In the doctoral school of NSE, this share is substantially lower. PhD students across all doctoral schools say to work just over 40 h per week. Experienced time pressure tends to be higher, and experienced time sovereignty tends to be lower in the doctoral school of LSM. Albeit the sample exists of equal shares of female and male PhD students, female PhD students are significantly underrepresented in the doctoral school of NSE. Finally, just under one in five PhD students report that their teaching exceeds contractual hours.

Working time experience and engagement in PhD research

Figure 1 shows the overall path model with standardized regression coefficients. The model fit indices show a good fit (chi-square = 11.323, CFI = 0.997, RMSEA = 0.016, SRMR = 0.024). Additionally, the overall path models for earlier waves of the PhD Survey (2021 and 2020) show that results are replicable (see Supplementary Material Appendix A, Table A1).

Path model (wave = 2022, n  = 514), *** p ≤ 0.001, ** p ≤ 0.01, * p ≤ 0.05, (*) p ≤ 0.10

The variables that control the objective time indicators show that the hypothesized associations between sex and working on non-standard hours or total working time are not significant (see Table 2 ). Working on non-standard hours (β = 0.088), the share of total working time not spent on research (β = 0.334), and total working time (β = 0.168) significantly increase when teaching exceeds the number of hours stipulated in the contract. Total working hours (β = 0.162) and the extent of non-standard working hours (β = 0.211) are significantly and positively associated with the engagement in PhD research. All three objective indicators of working time associate significantly positively with subjective indicators of working time and, in turn, these subjective indicators associate significantly negatively with engagement in PhD research. The feeling of being pressed for time significantly increases with a larger share of total working time not spent on research (β = 0.222), with more work being done on non-standard hours (β = 0.190) and with total working time (β = 0.135). Similarly, the feeling of lacking control over one’s working time in function of other responsibilities also increases with more working time not spent on research (β = 0.135) or done on non-standard hours (β = 0.157) and with longer working weeks (β = 0.231). In turn, the more time pressure one experiences (β =  − 0.243) and the more lack of time sovereignty one experiences (β =  − 0.135), the lower one’s engagement in PhD research.

Table 3 shows that the total effect of working on non-standard hours on engagement in PhD research is β = 0.144, because the direct positive effect of working on non-standard hours (β = 0.211) is offset by the indirect negative effect of working on non-standard hours that runs along experienced time pressure (β =  − 0.046) and along experienced lack of time sovereignty (β =  − 0.021). Similarly, the total effect of total working time on engagement in PhD research is β = 0.098 because the direct effect (β = 0.162) is offset by negative indirect effects that run along experienced time pressure (β =  − 0.033) and experienced lack of time sovereignty (β =  − 0.031). The university-wide results confirm our hypothesis. Indeed, the positive direct effect parameter of working long and non-standard hours on engagement in PhD research is partially offset by a negative indirect relationship that runs along indicators of experienced time pressure and lack of time sovereignty.

Differences by doctoral schools

Table 4 shows the standardized regression coefficients of the path model stratified by doctoral schools. When we first look at the control variables, we see that there are no differences between female and male PhD students when it comes to working on non-standard working hours. Only in the DSh do female PhD students report lower total working time than their male peers (β =  − 0.157). In all doctoral schools, PhD students report higher total working hours and a higher share of working time not spent on research when their teaching exceeds the contractual hours. The pairwise comparison of regression coefficients shows that the size of the effects is not significantly different between doctoral schools. Only PhD students in the doctoral school of NSE score significantly higher on the scale of non-standard working hours when their teaching exceeds the contractual hours (β = 0.127).

Direct effects are found in all doctoral schools, except for the association between total working time and engagement in PhD research in the doctoral school of LSM. The pairwise comparison of regression coefficients shows no differences in effect sizes across all doctoral schools.

Before concluding on the indirect effects, we look at the separate effects between objective and subjective indicators on the one hand and subjective indicators and engagement on the other. We start with experienced time pressure. In the doctoral school of DSh, all three objective indicators of working time associate significantly positively with experienced time pressure. In the doctoral school of LSM, feelings of time pressure only significantly increase when the share of non-research time increases. The same holds for the doctoral school of NSE. However, here, the degree of working non-standard hours also leads to more perceived time pressure. Although feelings of time pressure are affected by objective working time indicators differently across the doctoral schools, it remains that time pressure reduces PhD students’ engagement in their research across all doctoral schools. The pairwise comparison of regression coefficients also shows that effect sizes are equal in all doctoral schools.

Next, we look at the lack of time sovereignty. The extent of work done on non-standard hours significantly increases the lack of time sovereignty for PhD students in the doctoral schools of DSh and NSE. The effect parameter for the doctoral school of DSh (β = 0.287) is the largest and significantly larger than for the doctoral school of LSM (Δβ = 0.311). In both the doctoral school of DSh and LSM does an increased share of non-research time significantly increase the lack of time sovereignty. Again, the effect parameter is the largest for the doctoral school of DSh (β = 0.248). Finally, the total working time only associates positively with lack of time sovereignty in the doctoral schools of LSM and NSE. For both doctoral schools, the effect parameters (β = 0.296 and β = 0.322, respectively) are significantly larger than in the doctoral school of DSh (Δβ = 0.260 and Δβ = 0.286, respectively). Albeit the difference between regression coefficients across doctoral schools is not different from zero, we only find that an increase in the experience of lack of time sovereignty reduces PhD students’ engagement in their research in the doctoral school of NSE.

To test our hypothesis, Table 5 decomposes the total effect of working on non-standard hours and total working time into its direct and its indirect effects. The positive, direct effects are as reported in Table 4 . The negative, indirect effect of non-standard work that runs along experienced time pressure is only significant in the doctoral school of DSh and the doctoral school of NSE (β =  − 0.070 and β =  − 0.032). The indirect effect of non-standard work that runs along experienced lack of time sovereignty is only significant in the doctoral school of NSE (β =  − 0.029). No indirect effects of working on non-standard hours are found for the doctoral school of LSM. The result is that the total effect of non-standard hours on engagement in PhD research is significant for the doctoral school of DSh and NSE (β = 0.134 and β = 0.142, respectively) but not for LSM.

The indirect effect of total working time that runs along experienced time pressure is only significant for the doctoral school of DSh (β =  − 0.054) whereas the negative indirect effect that runs along experienced lack of time sovereignty is only significant for the doctoral school of NSE (β =  − 0.064). Again, the doctoral school of LSM reports no significant indirect effects. As a result, the total effect of total working time on engagement in PhD research is not significant for the doctoral school of LSM. The significant direct effect of total working time in the doctoral school of DSh is offset by the indirect negative effect of total working time such that the overall effect is insignificant. Only for the doctoral of NSE we found an overall positive effect on engagement in PhD research (β = 0.131).

The stratification of the analysis by disciplines leads us to partially confirm our hypothesis. The next section will discuss the meaning hereof in more detail.

Large-scale comparative research indicates that a substantial share of PhD students is unsatisfied with their long working hours and has experienced trouble with their work-life balance (Nature Research, 2022 ). Yet, PhD students are seldom evaluated in terms of their working hours. The focus lies much more on the perilous journey they embark on, and the extent to which their intrinsic motivation can overcome barriers during their intellectual quest (Naylor et al., 2016 ; Skakni, 2018 ; Woolston, 2022 ). At the same time, though, PhD students are employed in an environment that is highly susceptible to occupational stress and reduced well-being because of the working hours’ characteristics (Lee et al., 2022 ; Sabagh et al., 2018 ; Watts & Robertson, 2011 ). It is therefore remarkable that PhD students are rarely studied in terms of their working time distribution and, if they are, rarely looked at beyond the number of hours worked. It is reasonable to assume that, as with academic staff, other characteristics of working time, such as non-standard work or subjective experiences such as the work-life merge, also play a role for PhD students.

This contribution aims to shed light on the working time characteristics of PhD students and the extent to which they impact their engagement with their PhD research. It contributes to the existing knowledge on working conditions and the well-being of PhD students in three ways. Firstly, it looks beyond the idea that PhD students embark on a journey with all its (intellectual) challenges (Naylor et al., 2016 ; Skakni, 2018 ) and views PhD students as employees entering an academic work environment that, due to its high job demands and metric-based assessment criteria, may well cause occupational stress and a work-life merge (Fetherston et al., 2021 ). We, thus, assume that working time characteristics of PhD students, both in objective terms such as non-standard hours and long working days as well as in subjective terms such as time pressure and lack of time sovereignty, affect their engagement in their PhD research. Secondly, rather than using a single measure of (the amount of) working time, our study acknowledges the multidimensionality of the allocation of working time. By distinguishing different dimensions and using structural equation modelling to unravel their mutual relationships and predictive power regarding our outcome, we offer a much more nuanced view on PhD students’ time use. Thirdly, we use a university-wide sample of PhD students. This allows us to investigate potential differences in the association between working time characteristics and engagement in PhD research across scientific disciplines under similar institutional conditions.

In this contribution, we showed that, in general, working non-standard hours and working long hours impact engagement in PhD research both directly and indirectly. The direct effects are positive, meaning that working long and non-standard hours are associated with higher engagement in PhD research. This concurs with the idea of PhD research being an academic calling (Sabagh et al., 2018 ). It signifies a certain degree of motivation and commitment which in turn may of course also feed the number of working hours. However, this academic calling (and the possible mutually reinforcing dynamic between academic calling and the number of working hours) has a downside. There are also indirect effects of working non-standard hours and working long hours which run along experienced time pressure and experienced lack of time sovereignty that negatively associate with engagement in PhD research. In other words, and this is a crucial insight, the expected positive direct relationship for engaged PhD students might be offset by the negative indirect effects of long working days and non-standard work. Albeit the total effect remains positive, we, thus, must be aware that when it comes to working time characteristics two opposite mechanisms are at play. Long working hours and atypical work characterize committed PhD students, but at the same time, they can cause negative work experiences such as time pressure and lack of time sovereignty, which actually reduce their commitment. This finding raises some important questions for future exploration. Is there a threshold at which the negative experiences of long and non-standard hours overtake the positive impact of seeing one’s research as an academic calling (Conway et al., 2017 )? Or is the downside of an academic calling that PhD students work long hours and are very engaged in their research, but as a result of which setbacks in their research or personal life have a much greater impact (Sonnentag et al., 2008 )?

There are some outstanding differences, however, when looking at different scientific disciplines. We used the university’s doctoral schools as proxies for scientific disciplines: human sciences, sciences and engineering, and life sciences and medicine. Remarkably, we did not find any significant direct or indirect effect parameter of long working hours on engagement in PhD research for PhD students in life sciences and medicine. We did find a direct effect parameter of non-standard working hours on their engagement in PhD research but that was offset by the indirect effects completely rendering the total effect statistically insignificant. Working hour characteristics, therefore, seem to affect engagement in PhD research the least in the life sciences and medicine. Possible explanations are that PhD students combine their PhD research with already less regular schedules of specialist training in the hospital. Especially in medicine, irregular and long working hours are part of the job and possibly already expected and anticipated by PhD students based on their BA and MA experiences.

The opposite is found for PhD students in sciences and engineering. Although working non-standard hours and long working days positively affect their engagement in PhD research, the effect parameters of both indictors are offset by negative indirect effects that run along experienced lack of time sovereignty. Additionally, the effect parameter of working non-standard hours is offset by the negative indirect effect that runs along experienced time pressure. Compared to the other disciplines, the indirect effect that runs along the experienced lack of time sovereignty is the largest for this discipline. Possible explanations are that PhD students in sciences and technology are often part of larger projects in which they carry out partial research. Moreover, they are much more dependent than other disciplines on fixed time slots for technical machines, devices, and laboratory settings for conducting experiments. The resulting time constraints and the fact that their research results serve a greater research project may diminish their control over their own time to a greater extent and impose a degree of time pressure.

When it comes to time pressure, the largest indirect effects are reported for PhD students in human sciences. The positive direct effect of long working hours on their engagement in their PhD research is offset by the negative indirect effect that runs along experienced time pressure, rendering the total effect of long working hours insignificant. Although the total effect of working non-standard hours remains positively significant, the direct effect is offset by a third by the indirect effect that runs along time pressure. Possible explanations are that the human sciences, more than other scientific disciplines, are in much more direct and much more contact with their stakeholders in society. PhD students in the human sciences are usually more involved in pure activism and social impact initiatives. Moreover, it is a branch of science that receives a lot of resources from research projects commissioned by governments or interest groups (e.g. on education, culture, media, politics). PhD students who are funded through such projects spend a lot of time on stakeholder and science communication. All these extra tasks may lead to more perceived time pressure to get everything done.

This contribution is not without its limitations. This survey uses self-reported estimates of working hour characteristics. It is known that time diary methodology is more reliable. However, it is also known to require longer fieldwork periods and more effort from respondents. As such, it is not in line with the current study design but worth considering in future iterations to get a more reliable grasp of the temporal characteristics of doing PhD research. In its current form, not much is known about attrition of the sample. PhD students that faced a severe impact from working hours characteristics on their work-life or well-being might have dropped out. In that case, we may be underestimating the problem. Linking future research with the university’s administrative data would provide more information about attrition due to drop-out.

PhD students come to work in academic environments that are characterized by long working hours and work done on non-standard hours due to increasing job demands and metric evaluation systems. They are motivated by an intellectual quest and an academic calling that makes them put up with long working days and non-standard work which signifies their engagement in their PhD research. However, there is a downside that needs attention. The same working hour characteristics could indirectly affect their engagement negatively because they result in experiencing time pressure and lack of time sovereignty. These are the same alarm signals that are flagged as risk factors in academic staff for occupational stress, burnout, and work-life imbalance.

Data Availability

Raw data cannot be shared publicly because of the institution’s privacy regulations. Data code necessary to replicate results are available from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s Institutional Data Access (contact via [email protected]) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members of the project steering committee for their constructive feedback on the ideas that led to this contribution. The responsibility for the content and any remaining errors remain exclusively with the authors.

This research is part of the project VUB PhD Survey funded by the Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

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van Tienoven, T.P., Glorieux, A., Minnen, J. et al. Caught between academic calling and academic pressure? Working time characteristics, time pressure and time sovereignty predict PhD students’ research engagement. High Educ 87 , 1885–1904 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01096-8

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The Savvy Scientist

Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond

How Much Work is a PhD?

PhD students are in a fuzzy area; officially students but working full-time with academic staff as colleagues. I get a lot of questions about how my day is structured as a PhD student because it can be very different to undergraduate. The most obvious questions are how much work is a PhD and how many hours does a PhD student work per week?

PhD Structure

The structure of PhDs vary considerably but it’s fair to say that often working hours are similar or higher than a regular job. During my induction at Imperial it was stated that the expectation was basically to work hard enough carry out world leading research: no pressure!

I figure the easiest illustration of the workload is to show a month of my calendar, giving a glimpse of how my time is divided. 

One of the best things about a PhD is the variety, which meant that showing just a single day, or week wouldn’t be particularly representative: hence I kept a rough diary for the month of January. I am currently in my second year, and this diary represents the 15th month of my PhD. In case you just want a summary, feel free to skip down the page.

Clicking on each week’s calendar will open up a high-res image which may be easier to read. I included my commute to give a sense of how much non-work time I had. At the time I was commuting an hour each way, which has now been halved. I covered housing in this post:  How Much it Costs to Live in London as a Student.

My January 2018 Calendar (Month 15 of PhD)

For higher-resolution copies, you can click on each week!

Putting this together I realise that I do lots of office work!

Over half my time is sitting at my desk, twice as much as in the lab. This very much varies depending on your project.

Mine has a decent mix of lab work and computing time and it takes longer to process my experimental data than to collect it, hence the split in my time. Some of my peers work on projects that don’t require nearly as much time analysing data and so almost all of their time is in the lab, whereas the opposite is true of others running complex computer simulations.

Despite spending so long in the office, every day is quite different. Many days may look similar from how I categorised the calendar, but I didn’t break down the categories in to the actual tasks which for the most part are varied.

The great thing with a PhD is having freedom to manage your own time. Usually there aren’t extremely urgent tasks so you can mix and match and keep your days varied.

I work similar, or longer, hours to most office jobs. There are certainly times when I work longer hours than shown in this example month, but for the most part it’s representative. I believe I work similar hours to my peers but I don’t know how it compares to other research groups or universities: feel free to let me know!

I didn’t include time for any lunches. I’m often pretty bad and eat at my desk, usually while continuing to work. I do take frequent breaks to go and grab a drink, or more recently to go and tend to a garden nearby which I manage.

As much as possible I try and avoid working at the weekends. There can be a big difference between working long hours and working efficiently. It is sometimes problematic to switch off because there is constantly the opportunity to do more and more work.

Finding that balance can certainly be a challenge and perhaps something I should make a separate post about. I’d rather not spend seven days a week at work!

A Quick Summary of How Much Work is Involved in a Phd

A PhD is a marathon and not a sprint: it’s important to work smart.

By that I mean, if you’re struggling to focus on a particular day, go and take a break. Add in some easy or fun tasks to make yourself content with your productivity. Or if you’re having a particularly bad day, take the rest of the day off.

You’re in control of your own time and it’s not always smart to force work if you’re not feeling it. A PhD isn’t a piece of coursework in undergrad where you can pull an all-nighter and get it completed. I don’t know how my working hours compare to other PhD students but I know that it’s important to work at a sustainable pace.

There are some great opportunities to seize when you’re a PhD student which I think are worth making time for . Not only can having a good work-life balance help your sanity and wellbeing, you never know where the opportunities could lead!

If you’d like personalised help with your PhD application I am now starting to offer a small number of one-to-one sessions. Please contact me to find out more or click here to book a call.

I hope this has been useful in dispelling the myth that PhD students must spend every waking hour at work. The main thing I find important is being smart with your time. Let me know your thoughts too in the comments! You can subscribe for more content here:

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New report suggests PhD students work 50% more than undergraduates

• 25 June 2020

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a new report on the experience of PhD students – people who are studying for doctoral degrees.

PhD Life: The UK student experience  by Bethan Cornell uses previously unpublished data from  Nature  and the Wellcome Trust to uncover the reality of life as a PhD student.

The key findings include:

• the average PhD student works 47 hours per week, which is over 50% more than the average undergraduate and three hours less than the average academic;
• for PhD students on the basic Research Council stipend, this equates to earning less than the minimum wage;
• over three-quarters of PhD students (78%) are satisfied or highly satisfied with their degree of independence;
• 63% of PhD students see their supervisor for less than one hour per-week;
• 23% of PhD students would change their supervisor if they were starting their PhD again now;
• the majority (80%) of PhD students believe a career in research can be lonely and isolating;
• over one-third (37%) of PhD students have sought help for anxiety or depression caused by PhD study;
• one-quarter (25%) of PhD students feel they have been bullied and 47% believe they have witnessed bullying; and
• one-fifth (20%) of PhD students feel they have been discriminated against and 34% believe they have witnessed discrimination.

The report incorporates qualitative research that captures the voices of PhD students:

• ‘Due to being [funded] by a stipend and not through student finance, and not technically being employed by the university means that I am not eligible for childcare funding. The cost of childcare is around £11,000 per year, my stipend is £14,200.’
• ‘almost all the staff I meet from different universities are “pals from [insert elitist uni here]”. As such they have very little understanding of the challenges someone from a “normal” or disadvantaged background faces, especially financially, giving the overwhelming impression that your skills are secondary to your class.’ 
• ‘The higher up you go, the more male and white-dominated the environment becomes. There’s only one full female professor in my whole institute, and I have genuinely never met a black PI [Principal Investigator] or professor since starting my PhD.’

The author of the report, Bethan Cornell, who is currently studying for a PhD in Physics, said:

Despite PhD students making a valuable contribution to UK research output, there are huge variations in the way they are recruited and funded and the quality of support they receive. This makes it hard regulate their experience and means PhD students’ voices can go unheard when things go wrong.’ Where good practice exists in the UK and abroad, the sector should take note and use it to form a more cohesive and uniform approach to PhD training. This would benefit not just the students, but the quality of UK research output.

Nick Hillman, the Director of HEPI, said:

Too often, people taking PhDs are regarded as neither one thing nor the other. They are not seen as students the way undergraduates are and they are not seen as staff the way academics are. Sometimes, PhD students receive excellent support but, too often, they fall through the cracks, making them demoralised and unhappy. When that happens, we all lose because the world desperately needs people who push forward the frontiers of knowledge. We know far more about undergraduates than we used to and we now need similar levels of research on the student experience of postgraduates to help policymakers, regulators and funders improve their lives.

In the Foreword to the report, Dr Katie Wheat, Head of Engagement and Policy at Vitae, said:

This report makes an important contribution to current debates on research culture by presenting the views of doctoral researchers in the UK extracted from the recent Wellcome Trust and  Nature  reports. It highlights several areas of concern, including working conditions, wellbeing, supervision and incidents of bullying and harassment.  The findings chime with growing recognition of the need to improve research culture.

Watch and listen to a presentation on the new report by the author by clicking on the video below.

Notes for Editors

• The report is based, with permission, on data obtained by the Wellcome Trust, who surveyed 7,646 researchers over five weeks from September 2019, and  Nature , who   surveyed 6,320 current PhD students worldwide for six weeks between June and July 2019. The report combines the responses of UK-based students from both surveys, making the maximum number of respondents for any question 1,069. The confidence interval is 95% with a 5% margin of error.
• The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) was established in 2002 to shape the higher education policy debate through evidence. It is the United Kingdom’s only independent think tank devoted to higher education. HEPI is a non-partisan charity funded in part by organisations and universities that wish to see a vibrant higher education debate.
• In May 2020, HEPI published  Postgraduate Education in the UK  (HEPI Analytical Report 1) by Dr Ginevra House, which reviewed the state of postgraduate education since the last recession.

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How are PhD students meant to survive on two-thirds of the minimum wage?

Lecturer in Applied Mathematics and Physics, Griffith University

Associate Dean Learning and Teaching, College of Science & Engineering, James Cook University

Disclosure statement

Nathan Garland has previously received funding from an Australian Postgraduate Award.

Shaun Belward works for James Cook University. He received an Australian Postgraduate Research Award to study a PhD in the 1990s and has also benefitted from federally funded learning and teaching grants.

James Cook University and Griffith University provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

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Over the decades, supportive parents of Australian students on the cusp of graduating from their undergraduate studies have occasionally been struck by a bewildering decision by their pride and joy. Instead of pursuing an appetising salary in a prestigious company, their student has instead decided to do the unthinkable: they’re going to do a PhD. Where’s the money in that? What will we tell the neighbours?

A PhD program is foremost a training experience. A PhD student works a full-time apprenticeship ( 38 hours a week on average) in their chosen research field, guided by expert mentors along the way. While the choice to enter a PhD program is primarily based on a student wanting to upskill and learn, much like the choice to pursue an undergraduate degree, the starting point, method of study and outputs of a PhD are very different.

In Australia, the standard scheme to fund the living costs of PhD candidates is a tax-free stipend from their university. The university is allocated the funds via the Research Training Program (RTP) .

This stipend is now $28,854 a year (indexed annually against inflation). That’s only two-thirds of the national minimum wage after last week’s increase to $42,246.88 .

Read more: This 5.2% decision on the minimum wage could shift the trajectory for all

In weekly terms an income of $554.88 puts PhD candidates well below the poverty line of $608.96 for a single person if they have to pay for housing. Further, it’s close to an all-time low of 30% as a proportion of average full-time earnings.

In 2017 a sliding scale of stipends was introduced. Looking at the websites of the 39 members of Universities Australia in June 2022, it is encouraging to see a few universities offer higher rates than the required minimum for their PhD programs. However, most universities still mandate the lowest base rate.

A fair shake of the sauce bottle

This funding arrangement has been in place for some time, serving the community reasonably well. However, in the current economic climate of uncertainty, rising costs of living, skyrocketing rents and the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase the minimum wage by 5.2%, it is worth comparing historical stipend rates , dating back to 1959, with other relevant yardsticks of income.

To make a fair comparison, we could scale up historically recorded weekly average , median and minimum wages over a 52-week year, noting that most Australian PhD programs permit 20 days of paid personal leave per year. Below, we see how these annual incomes have evolved over time since the inception of the PhD stipend.

Alternately, we can plot the PhD base rate and minimum wage as proportions of the average full-time income. Also shown is the consumer price index (CPI) as a standard measure of inflation, to give us some context – especially at this time of soaring living costs.

At present, PhD stipends languish far below the minimum wage, even allowing for tax on the minimum wage (take off roughly $4,600 for the new minimum wage). The PhD stipend is at a near historical low when compared to the average full-time annual income.

Clearly, from the historical trends in the above graphs, things weren’t always this bad. The minimum wage and PhD stipend values have been comparable, but now they are well and truly detached.

Read more: Is it a good time to be getting a PhD? We asked those who've done it

Most PhD candidates have already done four or five years of university studies and have advanced, valuable skill sets. Being asked to live far below minimum wage seems a little unfair.

It’s also worth considering the overall benefits and impacts of knowledge generated a PhD student generates. They produce journal articles throughout their PhD project. Being told to survive well below minimum wage, while making valuable contributions to society and the future of Australia, doesn’t sound like a fair go for those who have a go, as a former prime minister once said .

Read more: 1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going

But there is hope

While these trends and current situations don’t make for happy reading, there is hope, and precedent for change. The above graphs show the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments arrested the free-fall in PhD stipend value around 2009. This happened in response to a proposal by the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations after PhD students fell below the poverty line for the first time.

Looking abroad to Europe , countries like the UK, Germany and Italy show us it is possible to value the hard work of research students at universities.

Read more: Australia can get a better return on its investment in PhD graduates

The COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to consider the immediate relevance of cutting-edge science, technology and medical research. As the world waited for an end to lockdowns and uncertainty, PhD students were making vital contributions to help find a way out of our global predicament. Although usually in a supporting capacity, their role required a significantly advanced and niche skill set.

Some of these PhD students across Australia probably could have made a bit more money working fewer hours if they did run off and join the circus instead, but we’re lucky they didn’t.

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What is the life of a phd student really like, published by steve tippins on june 9, 2020 june 9, 2020.

Last Updated on: 2nd February 2024, 05:11 am

Life of a PhD student? Hell. That about sums it up.

Okay, that’s not a very satisfying answer. Nor is it completely true. Life as a PhD student doesn’t always feel like hell. It does sometimes, but it’s also an exhilarating and rewarding time to explore your area of interest and grow into a true scholar. So what does the life of a PhD student really look like?

The life of a PhD student is somewhat varied depending on the field you’re going into. Generally speaking, no matter what program you’re in, it has two phases: coursework and dissertation.

Coursework Phase

Doctoral-level are courses that are a lot harder than undergraduate or even Master’s courses , but they are similar in structure: there’s a syllabus, due dates, other students in the class, etc. There are definitive semesters, quarters, or terms. In between terms, there’s really not much work to do. 

Of course, there are different expectations for PhD students than for undergrads. They are held to a far more rigorous standard in the work that they do. Class sizes are much smaller, and students are expected to participate in nuanced discussions. There is no sliding by unnoticed in a PhD program.

All that said, the coursework phase of the life of a PhD student is not altogether different than their previous educational experience, besides being more rigorous. It’s like school on steroids. 

Depending on the school, there may be a transition from classwork: comprehensive exams. This is basically, “study everything you’ve learned so that you can be ready for any question.” 

Dissertation Phase

The dissertation phase is a world in which there’s no syllabus, no classmates, and no real structure. You have your Chairperson and Committee to keep happy, but they’re not pushing you forward or expecting you to turn things in by a certain date. They’re just waiting for you to do what you have to do. 

Once you get to the dissertation stage, the concept of semesters and quarters goes away, and you’re working on your topic all the time.

Over 50% of doctoral candidates don’t finish their dissertations.

Many students find that not having due dates can make it difficult to work efficiently and make real progress on their dissertation . I speak more about how to effectively navigate this later on in this article.

I f you go into a program that has a large number of doctoral students, you’ll still be alone when you get to the dissertation stage, but you’ll have other people a similar stage. If you’re in a smaller program (for example, I was the only person in my PhD program), you may be all alone during the dissertation phase.

You’ll have to be able to move from the structured format of classes to the dissertation stage, where there’s very little structure and it can be lonely.

How Many Hours do PhD Students Work?

How many hours do PhD students work? Many PhD students have about 40 hours a week of reading and classwork, plus around 20 hours a week of assistantship or lab time. And that’s minimum. You may also be teaching while you’re doing your dissertation. I had two classes a semester, which ended up being 6 hours a week of class time, plus preparation and grading.   It’s easy to have a 60-80 hour week. In the life of a PhD student, the concept of “weekends” does not exist.

When you get to your dissertation, it’s easy to say “Oh, thank god I don’t have to do that anymore” and just stop. But don’t. You’ll need to put in the same hours on your dissertation if you want to finish within a reasonable timeframe (unless you’re deliberately making a choice to finish over a longer period of time).

Life of a PhD Student

Here, I’ll describe some of the common themes of the life of a PhD student, regardless of discipline. If you’re not yet enrolled in a PhD program, I highly recommend reading this to get an idea of the realities of what doctoral-level work looks like. If you’re already living the life of a PhD student, you will find some indispensable hints and advice for getting through with your mental health intact.

Being a Doctoral Student Is Not Like Being an Undergrad

Life as a PhD student is not the same as life as an undergrad. You’re there for the academic experience, not for anything else. Don’t expect to be able to join clubs and have time to socialize or go to football games. You may even find yourself feeling jealous of undergrads. 

But you’re there for a completely different purpose. You are the reason that the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You are training to join the ranks of the world’s elite minds. 

You Can’t “Just Get By”

On the same note, the academic standards to which you’ll have to hold yourself change. As an undergraduate, you can get by easily with “what do I need to know,” and as a PhD student you ask, “what more can I learn?”

If you have the mentality of asking “what do I need to get by?” you shouldn’t be in a doctoral program. Because if you’re in a doctoral program, you’re going to end up as an expert. If your specific topic comes up in important policy decisions, you may be asked to be on an advisory panel. At some point, you will probably be asked to be an expert somewhere, and the advice you give will influence people’s lives. Society depends on you doing a good job in order to function well.

Doctoral programs are rigorous for a reason: only those who have a true passion and care for their subject area are afforded the power that a doctorate gives.

Writing a Dissertation Takes Over Your Life

Writing a dissertation is an immersive experience. It’s so much a part of the life of a PhD student that it’s hard to differentiate between when you’re working and not working. 

You also have to do things besides actually writing, and these things sometimes take a frustratingly long time. For example, making calls to institutions you are gathering data from, figuring out how to access or use software programs, or transcribing interviews. 

It doesn’t feel like you’re making progress on your dissertation because you haven’t written anything, so it can be easy to get discouraged. It’s important to account for the time spent doing this kind of thing so that you don’t feel like you’re failing when you have to spend entire days on it rather than writing.

I had a friend who spent an entire weekend trying to de-bug a program, and the problem ended up being a zero that had been replaced by an O. That kind of stuff happens all the time, and it’s often when students quit. Account for this ahead of time so that it’s just part of the deal.

It is hard to communicate to friends and family members about what you’re going through in this process. They may expect you to be the same person you were before you entered the program and have the same flexibility. This can put a lot of pressure on friendships and relationships.  

You see all these other people who seem like they’re doing amazing things. Going on vacation, having children, advancing their careers. It may feel like you’re missing out. The life of a PhD student is also extremely isolating. Your family may not understand what you’re going through. It’s important to take care of your mental and emotional health so that this doesn’t lead you to drop out.

No Time for Anything

Those people who go into a doctoral program and continue a job and have families have to understand that they’re going to have very little time for anything other than those three things during the program. There is often not even enough time for all three of those. Understand that your faculty will have expectations of you and rarely considers outside commitments or desires when evaluating whether you’ve met those expectations.

Much of the life of a PhD student is actually deferring life–or at least all of the facets of life outside of academia. It means following everybody else’s requirements until you graduate. 

Revisions, Revisions, Revisions

Being a PhD student means constant revising. That’s one of the reasons that people quit, because they don’t realize how much revising will be necessary. When students get a draft of their proposal back for revisions a fifth time, many consider that a failure, but that’s simply the nature of writing a dissertation.

People get angry because they think they’re failing or they think that professors are being hard on them. But having to do multiple revisions is the norm. You’re learning a new language (academic writing), and you’re conducting an extremely rigorous project.

In classes, professors may let things slide. But any professor worth their salt won’t let things slide in your dissertation. It’s a good place for a perfectionist.

Here are some common reasons why students struggle with the type of academic writing required in a dissertation:

• You feel like you’re repeating yourself a lot
• You have to make your argument very clear and slow
• You can’t assume any knowledge
• You have to be extraordinarily specific
• You have to be extremely consistent

A Warning for Doctoral Students

There are stories of faculty members who take advantage of doctoral students to pick up laundry, babysit children, or worse. However power can be abused, some people in positions of power will try to do it. While hopefully there has been enough conversation about this that it is declining, it is something to be aware of. Listen to other people and be careful. 

The academic system is set up for an uneven balance of power–even before you account for our societal power dynamics of gender and race.

While there is a worthy tradition of “paying your dues” in academia, this means paying your dues to the profession–through teaching, learning, and research–not paying dues to members of the profession.

All this said, there are times when it isn’t inappropriate for faculty members may ask you to do things outside of the realm of academia (you can feel free to accept or decline as you wish). When I was in my graduate program a faculty member asked if I could help him move one weekend. I helped him for an hour and a half, and he gave me $100. 

He was trying to be nice to me, and he certainly didn’t take advantage of the power dynamic. However, I was working as an assistant on a research project and getting paid $12/hr, and I jokingly chided him for paying me more for my brawn than my brains.

Final Thoughts

The life of a PhD student is not easy, but it is rewarding. Time and time again, I’ve seen the difference between students who complete their doctoral programs and those who don’t is whether they’re able to get enough support.

That’s why I started offering Dissertation Coaching Services . I help PhD students get through the dissertation phase of their doctoral programs, successfully defend them, and graduate with their degrees.

If you are interested in receiving support from a Dissertation Chair through weekly coaching sessions, feedback on your work, and accountability tools, book a free 30-minute consultation . As of this writing, I am nearing capacity, so please do so soon if you would like to participate.

Steve Tippins

Steve Tippins, PhD, has thrived in academia for over thirty years. He continues to love teaching in addition to coaching recent PhD graduates as well as students writing their dissertations. Learn more about his dissertation coaching and career coaching services. Book a Free Consultation with Steve Tippins

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What should be a daily routine for PhD Students? Our proven checklist

PhD is the topmost academic honor , we write this line every time in our articles, only to make you understand how serious it is. To achieve the doctoral award, one has to develop some routine habits and self-discipline throughout the tenure. 

This article is not the kind of all other articles on the internet which demonstrate some common things. Here is the standard daily routine process we advise our students to follow. This work, and will work for you. 

Stay tuned with this content, it will certainly change your PhD journey. 

The 7+8= 6 formula

Your daily planner, parkinson’s law , balance reading, writing and research , prepare goals for a day, check the goals for the day .

•  Learn a single new thing every day 

Do exercise

Check your computational work, and make a backup, an ideal daily routine for a phd student, wrapping up: , a daily routine for phd students: .

This one is our proven formula, trust me. Sleep for 7 hours, work for 8 hours, for all 6 days in a week. Rest is very important to reduce the burden and tension. Make sure you rest for at least 7 hours every day no matter how much workload you have. 

Work for 8 hours, including your research, lectures and other academic activities. Do check your daily work amount, without failure. No matter what you do (related to your PhD), you have to work for 8 hours every single day. 

This routine should be followed for six-day, and you can take a rest, party, read or walk around on Sunday. Follow the 7+8=6 formula and let me know your experience. 

As a PhD student, you must have your daily planner on your PC or laptop or on your desk. The daily planner will show you your work picture for the entire month. If you don’t have one, download it from here.  

Make a red circle when you fail to achieve a goal or daily progress. This will make you a better researcher. Plan, roughly your work for the month and try to achieve every single objective every day.  

Here is the secret formula using which you can increase productivity and do more work in less time. Parkinson’s law says that work expands to the time allowed for it. 

For example, if you give 5 hours to write an article, or paper or anything, you can write in 5 hours. You see your social media, and videos, and do other stuff and reach the goal. But if you give 2 hours for the same work, you can really achieve it in 2 hours. 

Trust me, this is scientifically proven. Make a small goal and try to complete it in a shorter time period, put your mobile and all other activities aside and only focus on that particular piece of work. 

Try it. You will love it. Remember it’s Parkinson’s law.   

Students work only under pressure or when required. But let me tell you that you can gradually decrease your workload by managing your work from day one. Plan how much time you will give to read, write and research. 

I know, at first, it looks unrealistic but it can be managed. Prepare a timetable, for example, 2 hours to search literature early before your college hours. Search sources, material or literature which possibly helps your that day’s research work. 

• 2 hours- literature review
• College hours (3 to 4)- research and lab work 
• 1 hour- enlist the results 
• 2- read literature to correlate or justify your findings. 

This should be your plan for a typical academic day. For example, let’s say today you would prepare some chemical solutions for your research.  So before 2 hours of your work, read what chemicals are used, and what are their roles, quantity and variation that other scientists use.

After preparing solutions, check them, note results and search what others have found. Correlate it, and find problems so that you can work seamlessly for actual experiments.    

This is something less recognized but so important. Wake up early, be prepared and enlist goals for the day. What would you do in the lab? Do remember Parkinson’s law and list more goals than the time allotted.  

This routine will certainly help you to manage work and decrease your workload. In the long run, I bet you, you will be way ahead of your colleagues. 

Now you have goals, planned how to execute them and worked. Go home and take a quick look at the goal book, and whether all goals are achieved, if you have achieved goals in time, before time or if some are left. 

Also, note if some crucial goals are achieved in time or not.  

  Learn a single new thing every day 

See, your ultimate goal is not only achieving a PhD degree, but afterward, you also have to go for a job or something else. Your degree is not the only thing required in the future. So try to learn at least a single new thing every day. 

For example, a single or two new phrases, an English word or a new language. Learn MS Office or Excel, Some tools, etc. 

Do yoga and meditation 

Now, this is an obvious routine not only for a PhD student but also for others. Do yoga and meditation, possibly early in the morning. Yoga will strengthen your soul and inner spirit while meditation helps you to keep calm and fight depression and stress. 

Again one obvious routine for everyone. If you like or not, do exercise, cardio, and physical activity and strengthen yourself. See, to achieve some serious things like a PhD, one must have been physical and mentally strong. 

Do hit the gym or exercise every single day at least for 5 days a week.  

Before going to sleep, take a quick look at all of your day’s activity, and if required, take a backup of some data or work. Don’t take backup lightly, data is everything. If you lose it, you will regret it. 

When to write? 

Writing is a serious business. You have to give so much time and can’t be managed in a daily routine. You have to read, understand, think and then write so it takes time. Plan to do research for 3 days and write for 3 days, on a weekly basis. 

Again, manage things by yourself, if you are at the early stage, you can give more time to research. If your work is almost done, you can give yourself more days to write.   

It’s not military training, first of all, keep in mind. This is just a time management plan. You don’t have to always follow this. Manage things by yourself. Remember, your ultimate goal is to achieve a PhD, managing your health, mental status, physical status and social commitments. 

However, self-discipline is tough but important. So try to follow this routine at least for 6 months, regularly, if you wish or if you do not wish. Once it is in process, it becomes routine. 

Our students always remain ahead of their friends and we train them to follow the routine. I hope this will help you. Be a part of our community, and subscribe to us. 

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Managing Time in a PhD

One of the biggest benefits of a PhD is its flexibility. There are no set working hours. If you do not want to work 40 hours a week, don’t. If you prefer to have the Wednesday and the Saturday off rather than a regular weekend, do it. If you do not want to work one day, or one week, you do not have to.

But unsurprisingly, this can backfire. Due to a lack of structure, what you need the most in a PhD is good time management!

Meeting Deadlines

An important part of managing time in your PhD is meeting your deadlines. But a deadline can mean many things. The ultimate deadline is the fact that you need to hand in research at the end of 3 to 4 years (or even longer in some cases or countries).

Now you might be able to spot the issue here: that deadline is VERY far away. The smart thing to do is to set yourself smaller deadlines, that are attainable, and in shorter periods of time. Example: set deadlines for when certain chapters need to be written, when data collection needs to start and/or finish or when results need to be analysed.

The good thing about these earlier and smaller deadlines is the fact that they break down the massive goal of finishing a whole PhD into smaller and more attainable chunks. These chunks can then be further broken down into weekly and daily to-do-lists. This process has already given you ten times more of a structure than the initial set up. Now that some structure is in place, the question becomes: When exactly are you going to do this?

Working Hours and Efficiency

Most jobs have set hours, such as 9-5. During these hours, nothing is done besides work. Friends and family do not disturb you. Emergencies that are not job related will have to wait until the clock hits five.

Although there is an argument to be made for having set periods of time that are dedicated to just working without any type of interference, it doesn’t have to be 9-5. If you function best working at night, you can. Get up at noon, have breakfast and figure out your schedule for that day. If it works, it works. That is the benefit of the flexibility granted within a PhD.

Another thing most people do not seem to understand about PhDs is that if the mentality isn’t nine-to-five, we might not end up working 8-hour days. Some days will be more quiet, other days will be filled with preparing for and running experiments for 8 hours, then check the data and prepare for the next day. That is an 11-hour workday at least.

This does not even reflect the “coding-holes” some students fall into. Stuck behind a computer looking at codes. People can completely lose track of time during this. One reason this happens is because we don’t have the set hours, because we don’t really know when we are supposed to start and finish a day.

Guilt and Comparison

So, what do we base our hours on? Well it depends. Some people prioritise their social events and plan their work around that. They might still end up working over 8 hours, or not. I have friends who go into the office and treat it like a proper nine-to-five, but sometimes more like a ten-to-six, or eleven-to-seven. The general idea is clear. Another one of my friends works at least six days a week. When she takes a break, I do not know. What I do know is that when she does not work, she feels guilty about not working. I, too, have had these feelings of guilt.

We all have different ways of working. And we know that. And yet we compare. If I were to compare my work ethic to those of the two friends I just mentioned, I would look very lazy. But you cannot measure your success as a PhD student in hours worked. It needs to be output based. If you get three times more done in five hours than someone else gets done in ten, good for you. If you feel like you get less done if you have to work the full ten hours, and this also diminishes the work you are able to do the next day, do not work ten hours. There is no point. You would actually reduce your own productivity.

Also, you are allowed to take breaks. There is increasing pressure in a PhD to work more and more. To figure everything out early on and just keep at it. If you do not wish to have a burn out at the end of your second year, I suggest you take actual weekends off, weeks off to go on holiday and, sometimes, a nice mental health day off. Your (mental) health is what you need to get you through this process. See it as an investment if you would rather not see it as a holiday or a break. No need to feel guilty or embarrassed about an investment!

What do you do to manage your time in the PhD properly? Let us know by  tweeting us at  @ResearchEx , or email us at [email protected], or leave a comment below.

Merle van den Akker is a PhD student with the Behavioural Science Group at WBS, looking into the effect of contactless payments on how me manage our finances. She tweets at @MoneyMindMerle.

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What a great tips .. love reading throughly

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Home / Postgraduate Research Myths Debunked / “PGR Students Should Work Very Long Hours”

“PGR Students Should Work Very Long Hours”

The logic of this myth seem remorseless and difficult to resist. It seems obvious that the more time you spend on something, the more work you will get done. From a numbers perspective this just seems to make sense.

The problem is that human beings are living things and this variable significantly complicates the numbers. Research has shown that every hour someone works beyond 35 hours in a week, delivers diminishing returns – you get substantially less out of hour 45, then you get out of hour 35. In fact, as you get tired, the fact that you are more likely to make mistakes or miss important issues can mean your research can actually go backwards if you work long hours [ 1 ].

Added to this, is the fact that every hour worked over 35 hours a week has a negative impact on your wellbeing, significantly increasing your chances of becoming ill.

It is important to remember that being a PGR student is a marathon, not a sprint. Working extra hours for one week may well help you get a little bit more done but there will be a cost to pay in the following week. As you become more tired not only will you be more likely to make mistakes, problem solving will take longer as your thoughts slow and your productivity rates will drop. You will probably also find that although you are still at your desk or in the lab – you are spending lots of that time not doing any actual work. Our PGR students were very clear that when they were drawn into working long hours, they found themselves spending most of that time not really doing anything useful.

Maintaining good productivity throughout your PGR requires you to maintain a good rate of energy – and for that you have to rest and take breaks from work. 

Like a marathon runner, if you exert all of your energy straight away, at first it may feel like you are making good progress, as you sprint to the front of the field but you will soon become exhausted and it will be less likely that you will have the energy and strength to finish. 

Of course, this isn’t to say that you don’t need to work hard. But productivity is generally enhanced when we work in a structured and disciplined way, keeping regular hours, resting afterwards and sleeping well. Keeping office hours is good practice. 

But I had a brilliant idea at 3am, after working very long hours!

This is an objection that you may well hear from other people who have completed a PhD. It’s an example of a type of cognitive bias. Yes, they may well have had a good idea under these circumstances but what they are missing is that if they hadn’t been working such long hours, that idea would probably have occurred to them sooner. We see this in studies on students cramming for exams. In most cases, cramming has been found to reduce performance but some students will insist that they picked up a mark because of something they crammed the night before. However, research shows that although they may have picked up this mark, they will have lost more marks elsewhere on other answers because of how tired they were. 

You can’t avoid the fact that you are a human being and human beings get tired. When they do the quality of their work drops. Resist this myth, stay productive and well.

Video Resources

Dr. john pencavel (stanford university) discusses working long hours, productivity and wellbeing (audio), pgr students discuss doing their studies and not working long hours, and the strategies they use.

Pencavel, J. (2015). The Productivity of Working Hours. The Economic Journal , 125 (589), 2052–2076. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12166

“PGR Students Owe a Debt” →

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Recognizing the reality of working college students.

When academically qualified people do not have the financial resources needed to enroll and succeed in college, higher education fails to fulfill the promise of promoting social mobility—and may actually serve to reinforce social inequities. The cost of college attendance is rising faster than family incomes, and increases in federal, state, and institutional grants have been insufficient to meet all students’ demonstrated financial needs. Between 2008–09 and 2017–18, average tuition and fees increased in constant dollars by 36 percent at public four-year institutions and 34 percent at public two-year institutions, while median family income rose by only 8 percent . The maximum federal Pell Grant covered 60 percent of tuition and fees at public four-year institutions in 2018–19, down from 92 percent in 1998–99. Full-time, dependent undergraduate students in the lowest family-income quartile averaged $9,143 in unmet financial need in 2016, up 149 percent (in constant dollars) from $3,665 in 1990.  

Students who do not have sufficient savings, wealth, or access to other financial resources have few options for paying costs that are not covered by grants: they can take on loans, get a job, or do both. While these options pay off for many students, a higher education finance system that requires the use of loans and paid employment disproportionately disadvantages individuals from groups that continue to be underrepresented in and underserved by higher education.            

Growth in student loan debt is well documented. As of the second quarter of 2019, total outstanding student loan debt in the United States exceeded $1.6 trillion and represented the largest source of nonhousing debt for American households. Annual total borrowing among undergraduate and graduate students from federal and nonfederal sources increased 101 percent (by $53 billion) in constant dollars from 1998–99 to 2018–19 .

Many individuals who use loans to pay college costs complete their educational programs, obtain jobs with sufficiently high earnings, and repay their loans. But the implications of borrowing vary across groups and are especially problematic for students who do not complete their degree. The Institute for College Access and Success reports lower loan repayment rates for Pell Grant recipients, first-generation students, and black and Hispanic students as well as for students who attend for-profit institutions. Black students also average higher rates and amounts of federal loans and experience higher default rates .

Like taking on loans, working for pay can have benefits. Paid employment can provide students with money they need to stay enrolled, and it can build human capital and improve labor-market outcomes. An exploratory study by Anne-Marie Nuñez and Vanessa A. Sansone found that first-generation Latinx students developed new relationships, skills, and knowledge through work and experienced satisfaction and enjoyment from working. But working can also have harmful consequences. And, as with loans, the negative implications of paid employment are more commonly experienced by students from underserved and underrepresented groups.

The circumstances of working students today can undermine the mission of higher education for multiple reasons.

1. Many undergraduates are working more than twenty hours per week.

The US Department of Education reported that, in 2017, 43 percent of all full-time undergraduate students and 81 percent of part-time students were employed while enrolled (see table). The proportion of full-time students working for pay was higher in 2017 than in 2010, when 41 percent were employed, but lower than in 2005, when 50 percent worked for pay while enrolled. Employment rates for part-time students follow a similar fluctuating pattern: 86 percent in 2005, 75 percent in 2010, and 81 percent in 2017. In all, more than 11.4 million undergraduate students (58 percent) worked for pay while enrolled in 2017.

2. Working for pay is more common among undergraduates from underserved groups.

The financial need to work while enrolled, with all its negative consequences, disproportionately burdens students from historically underserved groups. While students from all family backgrounds work for pay, students from low-income families are more likely to do so—and, among those who are employed, work more hours on average—than their higher-income peers. The US Department of Education reports that, in 2017, 16 percent of black full-time students and 13 percent of Hispanic full-time students worked at least thirty-five hours per week while enrolled, compared with 9 percent of white full-time students.

Students who are classified as independent for financial aid purposes more commonly work for pay while enrolled than students who are classified as financially dependent (69 percent versus 59 percent in 2015–16, according to our analysis of 2016 NPSAS data). Working undergraduates who are independent also average more hours of work per week than working-dependent undergraduates (33.8 versus 22.1). Among working students, nearly three quarters (71 percent) of those who were also single parents with a dependent child worked thirty or more hours per week in 2016, compared with 50 percent of all working students.

3. Working for pay while enrolled is more common at under-resourced institutions.

The rate of employment and the rate of working more than twenty hours per week are higher among full-time students attending two-year institutions than among those attending four-year institutions. In 2017, 50 percent of full-time students at two-year institutions worked, and 72 percent of these working students worked more than twenty hours per week, according to the US Department of Education . By comparison, 41 percent of full-time students at four-year institutions worked; 60 percent of these students worked at least twenty hours per week.

Two-year institutions, as well as for-profit and less selective four-year institutions , enroll higher shares of students from low-income families. The Center for Community College Student Engagement reported that nearly half (46 percent) of Pell Grant recipients attending public two-year colleges in 2017 worked more than twenty hours per week.

4. Working while enrolled can be harmful to student outcomes.

Working can have costs, as time spent working reduces time available for educational activities. Research has shown that working more than twenty hours per week is associated with lower grades and retention rates. Studies also show that working may slow the rate of credit-hour accumulation, encourage part-time rather than full-time enrollment, and reduce the likelihood of completing a bachelor’s degree within six years. These outcomes lengthen the time to degree, which can increase opportunity and other college costs. Reducing enrollment to less than half time reduces eligibility for federal Pell Grants and other aid. And the need to allocate time to paid employment may create stress, especially for students who are also parents or other caregivers. A disproportionate share of single parents enrolled in college are black and American Indian women.

5. Students from low-income families and other underserved groups are less likely to have jobs that advance career-related knowledge and skills.

While any employment may improve conscientiousness, teamwork, and other occupational skills, not all jobs will advance career-related knowledge and skills . About a quarter (26 percent) of working students under the age of thirty held a job in the food and personal services industries in 2012, according to data in Learning While Earning , a report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce; only 6 percent held managerial positions. In addition to working more hours on average than their higher-income peers, students from lower-income families are also less likely to have paid internships or other positions related to their career goals.

In a 2016 study , Judith Scott-Clayton and Veronica Minaya of Columbia University found that students with on-campus work locations and major- or career-related positions had higher rates of bachelor’s degree completion than students with other employment. Yet students from lower-income families and other underserved groups are less likely to hold on-campus and major-related jobs.           

Ensuring that Work “Works”

Higher rates and intensity of employment among students from underserved backgrounds and those attending under-resourced institutions suggest that employment during college is serving to reinforce inequity in higher education opportunity, experiences, and outcomes. Changes in public policy and institutional practice are needed if higher education is to address these inequities. These efforts should focus on reducing the financial need to work and on minimizing the harm, while maximizing the benefits, of work.

Reducing the Need to Work

Even with current levels of employment, many students are struggling to make ends meet. In the 2015 National Survey of Student Engagement , most seniors at four-year institutions (63 percent) reported being “worried about having enough money” and half (48 percent) reported that they “did not participate in [unspecified] activities due to lack of money.” Reports of financial stress were more common among first-generation, black, and Hispanic students and among students over the age of twenty-four. More than a third (38 percent) of Pell Grant recipients at community colleges who worked more than twenty hours per week reported “running out of money” at least six times in a year, even though 46 percent worked more than twenty hours per week, according to the Center for Community College Student Engagement ; only 22 percent reported having access to cash, credit, or other sources of funds for an “unexpected need.”

The following strategies may help to reduce students’ financial need to work more than twenty hours per week, while still ensuring that they have the financial resources needed to enroll, engage, and persist to degree completion.

1. Reduce unmet financial need.

Federal, state, and local public policy makers can reduce unmet financial need by appropriating more resources to institutions, which can then be used to keep tuition low, and allocate more need-based grant aid. Institutional leaders can reduce unmet financial need by maximizing the availability of need-based grant aid, limiting merit-based grant aid, and controlling costs. Offering additional need-based aid to low-income students has been shown to reduce employment rates and number of hours worked and increase the likelihood of on-time degree completion .

2. Do not penalize students who work for pay in financial aid calculations .

Students should work to cover their own contribution to the Expected Family Contribution, as well as unanticipated costs that arise while enrolled. Student earnings from work should not be viewed as a way to cover costs that are omitted from an institution’s official cost of attendance or for covering unmet need. Working should provide a mechanism for paying unanticipated costs without influencing the availability of resources to pay the costs needed to stay enrolled.

3. Help students make individually appropriate decisions about federal loans and work.

Whether because of risk or loan aversion or because of incomplete or inaccurate information, some students do not use federal loans. Higher rates of loan aversion have been observed among men and Hispanic students . K–12 and higher education counselors and administrators should educate students, especially those from underserved groups, about the costs and benefits of paid employment and different types of loans and discuss how working more than twenty hours per week may increase time to degree, reduce the likelihood of completion, and result in other costs.

4. Ensure that students apply for and receive the need-based grant aid for which they are eligible.

Not all students who are eligible for need-based aid apply for and receive the aid. In 2011–12, in part because of a lack of clear information, approximately 20 percent of all undergraduates , and 16 percent of those with incomes below $30,000 , did not file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a condition for receiving most federal and state need-based aid. The Institute for College Access and Success reports FAFSA verification may also limit aid receipt and enrollment, especially for low-income students.

Minimizing Harm, Maximizing Benefits

Colleges and universities should also act to minimize the harm and maximize the benefits of working. The following strategies may help.

1. Increase the availability of on-campus and major-related employment.

Institutions should identify on-campus employment opportunities for students that are related to their major field and provide opportunities to build career-related knowledge and skills. Descriptive analyses suggest that academic outcomes are better for students who are employed on campus rather than off campus.

2. Ensure that high-quality academic and other supports are available to working students.

Creating an institutional environment that promotes success for working students requires a campus-wide effort. Observers have recommended that institutions support working students by offering courses in the evenings, on weekends, and online; making available future course schedules; offering access to academic advising, office hours, and other support services at night and on weekends; offering online course registration and virtual academic advising; providing child-care options; and designating space for working students to study. Institutions may also connect employment and educational experiences through career counseling and occupational placement.

3. Recognize differences in employment-related needs and experiences.

Institutions should also recognize differences in the supports needed by different groups of working students, as, for example, the experiences, needs, and goals of working adult part-time students are different from those of working full-time students who are still dependents. The Learning While Earning report recommends that institutions develop collaborations with area employers in order to provide adult working students with “convenient learning options; child care; affordable transportation options; employment partnership agreements; access to healthcare insurance; paid sick, maternity, and paternity leave; financial literacy and wealth building information and retirement and investment options; and tuition assistance.”

Colleges and universities, especially those that enroll high shares of working adults, should also consider mechanisms for awarding credit for work and other prior experiences. These mechanisms include the College Board’s College-Level Examination Program and the American Council on Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service.

Employment during college too often contributes to inequity in higher education opportunity, experiences, and outcomes. More can and should be done to ensure that all students—especially students who must work for pay while enrolled—can fully engage in the academic experience, realize the potential benefits of working, and make timely progress to degree completion.

Laura W. Perna is GSE Centennial Presidential Professor of Education and executive director of the  Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHEAD)  at the University of Pennsylvania. Her recent publications include Improving Research-Based Knowledge of College Promise Programs (2019, with Edward Smith) and Taking It to the Streets: The Role of Scholarship in Advocacy and Advocacy in Scholarship  (2018) . Her email address is [email protected] . Taylor K. Odle is a PhD student in higher education in Penn’s Graduate School of Education and an AM candidate in statistics at the Wharton School. He was previously assistant director for fiscal policy and research at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. His email address is [email protected] .

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RIT graduate pursues Ph.D. across time zones

Nastaran Nagshineh, center, defended her Ph.D. thesis at RIT in April. Faculty from RIT’s Rochester and Dubai campuses served on her thesis committee and include, from left to right, Kathleen Lamkin-Kennard, Steven Weinstein, Nathaniel Barlow, and David Kofke (a professor at the University at Buffalo). Mohamed Samaha participated remotely and appears on the video screen behind the group and alongside Nagshineh’s picture.

Nastaran Nagshineh is one of the first Ph.D. candidates to bridge RIT’s Rochester and Dubai campuses. Her accomplishment creates a path for future students at the university’s international campuses.

Nagshineh completed her Ph.D. in mathematical modeling while working full time as a mathematics lecturer at RIT Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, teaching as many as five classes a semester. She described her Ph.D. journey as “an exercise in perseverance” due to competing demands and long days. Rochester is eight hours behind Dubai, and the time difference meant many late-night classes and meetings.

“I saw this collaboration as an opportunity, rather than as a challenge, because my primary adviser, Dr. Steven Weinstein (RIT professor of chemical engineering), and my co-adviser, Dr. Mohamed Samaha (RIT Dubai associate professor of mechanical engineering), both have the same area of research interest,” she said. “They both worked toward my success.”

Nagshineh is one of 67 RIT Ph.D. students who defended their thesis this academic year and who will earn their doctorate. RIT awarded 63 Ph.D. degrees in 2023.

In 2020-2021, RIT’s Graduate School met and surpassed the university’s goal of conferring 50 Ph.D. degrees during an academic year. That number will continue to grow as students cycle through the seven new Ph.D. programs that RIT has added since 2017, said Diane Slusarski , dean of RIT’s Graduate School.

Meeting these goals puts RIT on a path toward achieving an “R1,” or research-intensive designation, from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning. RIT is currently ranked as an R2 institution . Many factors go into changing a university’s status, including research investment and maintaining a three-year average of 70 Ph.D. degrees awarded per year, according to Slusarski.

“We have met the goals of the strategic plan, and now we look forward to contributing to the research innovation in the future,” Slusarski said. “We want to help the new programs thrive and win national research awards.”

RIT’s emphasis on high-level research is seen in Nagshineh’s Ph.D. work. She applies mathematical modeling to the field of fluid dynamics. Her research has been published in top-tier journals and has gained notice, said Weinstein, her thesis adviser.

Weinstein describes Nagshineh’s accomplishments as “a testament to a fantastic work ethic and commitment” and is inspirational to younger students at Rochester and Dubai.

“The collaboration between RIT Dubai/Rochester has continued,” he said. “Another paper was submitted a few weeks ago with Mohamed Samaha and Nate Barlow (RIT associate professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics) as co-authors, as well as Cade Reinberger, a younger Ph.D. student in my research group.”

Mathematical modeling is one of RIT’s newer Ph.D. degree programs, and Nagshineh is among its earliest graduates. The program has doubled in size since it began accepting students in 2017, Slusarski said. This past fall, the mathematical modeling program had 35 students, with two graduating this year.

Altogether, RIT has 13 Ph.D. degree programs currently enrolling 438 students, with computing and information sciences accounting for the largest with 117 students. RIT’s other Ph.D. programs include astrophysical sciences and technology , biomedical and chemical engineering , business administration , color science , electrical and computer engineering, imaging science , mechanical and industrial engineering , microsystems engineering , and sustainability .

New programs in cognitive science and physics will launch in the fall.

The growth in RIT graduate education—with more than 3,000 master’s and doctoral students—reflects a demographic change in the student population, Slusarski said. “We have a higher percentage of women in the graduate programs than we have for RIT undergraduate programs.”

RIT’s graduate programs enroll 42 percent women, according to Christie Leone , assistant dean for the Graduate School.

Nagshineh, who also holds an MS in electrical engineering from RIT Dubai, welcomes her role as a mentor to other women students on both campuses.

“As a young woman in an Arabic country, the power of women is often underestimated and undervalued, and I hope to serve as a role model to female students, especially those that question their path,” Nagshineh said.

She plans to continue in her career as a professor and a researcher. “I would like to pursue a research program where I can advise my own students and teach them more deeply.”

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