Limited jobs in academia are deterring students from enroling in doctoral degrees in some countries.Credit: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty
Numbers of people enrolling in PhD programmes have dropped in a handful of countries in the past few years, which policy specialists are calling a worrying trend. From Australia and Japan to Brazil and the United Kingdom, there are concerns that high living costs, low stipends and limited job options after graduation are deterring people from pursuing doctoral degrees.
These declining numbers should “act as a wake-up call” for those countries, says Cláudia Sarrico, a project lead at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. “This is a signal you need to reform working conditions and think about diversifying career options — otherwise, you risk a talent drain that will ultimately slow down scientific progress.”
The most recent figures on this trend, released by Universities Australia and the Australian Council of Graduate Research (ACGR) in January, revealed an 8% reduction in the number of domestic PhD enrolments in Australia from 2018 to 2023, although the population of the country grew by more than 7% over the same period.
PhD poverty
In many countries, one of the biggest factors deterring students from pursuing doctoral degrees is the high cost of living relative to how much they get paid.
In Australia, the average PhD stipend is roughly Aus$32,000 (US$ 20,000). “It is well under the minimum wage,” says Louise Sharpe, president of the ACGR, based in Melbourne, Australia. And although it is just above the poverty line for people who are single, the average doctoral student in the country is in their late thirties — often having come with experience working in different sectors — and have families and other responsibilities, Sharpe adds.
Financial insecurity is also one of the chief concerns for doctoral students in Japan, where the numbers of PhD students has been dropping since the early 2000s. In 2023, the number of domestic PhD enrolments was 15,014, compared with a high of 18,232 in 2003. In response to this issue, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), announced plans last year to provide extra funding to doctoral students.
People have also been losing an interest in postgraduate education on the other side of the ocean. Last year, the Brazilian Federal Agency for the Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) released a report revealing that, in 2022, the country saw its lowest number of domestic PhD entrants in almost a decade. One factor was the COVID-19 pandemic, but that was not the only reason for the drop, says CAPES president Denise Pires de Carvalho, headquartered in Brasilia. The economic crisis in Brazil, along with the government’s unwillingness to increase funding for science and technology were also major contributors, Pires de Carvalho says.
Things are beginning to shift. In 2023, the Brazilian government increased the value of grants for master’s and doctoral students by 40% — the first increase in a decade. This change brought with it a slight increase in enrolments in that same year.
In Canada, where PhD numbers haven’t yet dropped, a need for more funding to provide a living wage for doctoral students has been a big discussion over the last few years, says Adam Sarty, the president-elect of the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies, who is based in Halifax. Last year, the Canadian government responded to this need by increasing graduate-student scholarships for the first time in more than two decades. This has been a welcome change, but Sarty notes that these grants only go to the top students — and extra changes are needed to provide more financial security to those who don’t win these scholarships.
But many Canadian universities are under financial strain because of a dip in enrolments in professional graduate programmes, such as MBAs, owing to a cap on international students that was put into place in 2024. Countries such as the United Kingdom have seen similar rules put in place in recent years — raising concerns about universities’ abilities to support early-career researchers.
