Trained and retained? International doctorate recipients in the German labor market

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Guido Bünstorf; Dr. Anja Rossen
• Subject Area: Economic Policy, Applied Economics
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558746666

Numbers and shares of non-German citizens among the doctorate recipients of German universities have increased more than threefold in the past three decades. The influx of international doctoral candidates has the potential to enhance the stock of human capital and help alleviate shortages in the supply of highly skilled labor. However, the labor market implications of training international doctoral candidates are under-explored, as there is insufficient knowledge about their retention in the German labor market after graduating from doctoral training, and the factors that shape this retention as well as their subsequent employment trajectories. The proposed project will use the IAB-INCHER Panel on Earned Doctorates (IIPED) to provide new insights into how international doctorate recipients are absorbed in the German labor market. The IIPED dataset was built by record-linking dissertation data in the catalog of Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) with the Integrierte Erwerbsbiographien of the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB). It covers the employment biographies of about 600,000 doctorate holders and has complete citizenship information, making it uniquely well suited for the planned analyses. We will first conduct a series of descriptive analyses of whether, how and where international doctorate graduates are observed in post-graduation employment in Germany. To probe more deeply into post-graduation career trajectories, we will then trace glass-ceiling effects that may prevent international doctorate holders from advancing their careers in the same way as their German peers do. Finally, we will study effects of legal and social factors that may affect the retention of international doctorate recipients in Germany. Specifically, we will analyze changes in immigration laws as well as variations in anti-immigration sentiment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants