Employed PhD graduates; labour characteristics
| Sex | Margins | PhD characteristics | Periods | Full-time (%) | Professional status Permanent employee (%) | Professional status Flexible employee (%) | Professional status Self-employed person (%) | Employed as researcher (%) | Employed in academia (%) | Work related to PhD research (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total male and female | Value | Total | 2019 | 71.9 | 72.6 | 17.5 | 9.5 | 79.0 | 32.5 | 68.5 |
| Total male and female | Value | Time since PhD: 5 years or less | 2019 | 72.4 | 78.3 | 10.3 | 11.1 | 79.8 | 31.9 | 66.6 |
| Total male and female | Value | Time since PhD: more than 5 years | 2019 | 70.8 | 57.6 | 36.8 | 5.4 | 77.1 | 34.0 | 73.4 |
| Total male and female | Value | 01 Education | 2019 | 54.9 | 75.1 | 19.2 | 5.7 | 79.5 | 44.3 | 83.4 |
| Total male and female | Value | 02 Design, arts, language and history | 2019 | 61.3 | 66.8 | 18.9 | 13.7 | 79.4 | 41.0 | 66.8 |
| Total male and female | Value | 03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... | 2019 | 61.6 | 70.6 | 19.2 | 10.0 | 84.0 | 40.0 | 75.0 |
| Total male and female | Value | 04 Law, business, administration, trade | 2019 | 74.8 | 75.2 | 13.4 | 11.0 | 78.3 | 36.3 | 74.9 |
| Total male and female | Value | 05 Mathematics, physical sciences | 2019 | 73.7 | 77.5 | 17.6 | 4.6 | 84.6 | 24.7 | 60.8 |
| Total male and female | Value | 06 Computing | 2019 | 80.5 | 77.9 | 12.1 | 10.1 | 90.8 | 27.2 | 72.8 |
| Total male and female | Value | 07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... | 2019 | 80.9 | 80.4 | 11.2 | 8.0 | 86.3 | 17.8 | 68.0 |
| Total male and female | Value | 08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... | 2019 | 73.5 | 73.4 | 14.6 | 10.5 | 86.9 | 23.7 | 70.9 |
| Total male and female | Value | 09 Health and welfare | 2019 | 74.4 | 66.6 | 20.1 | 13.1 | 68.3 | 38.3 | 69.7 |
| Total male and female | Value | 10 Services | 2019 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Source: CBS. | ||||||||||
Table explanation
This table shows figures on labour characteristics of employed PhD graduates after their PhD-track, by sex and PhD characteristics (time since receiving PhD and discipline).
The figures come from the periodically recurring Careers of Doctorate Holders survey. Data from the 2019 survey are published for the first time on Statline. The survey was also conducted in 2010 and 2014. The target population consists of all individuals who have obtained their PhD at a university affiliated with the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) since the academic year 1990/’91, who were under the age of 70 at the time of the survey, and who were residing in the Netherlands according to the Basic Registration of Persons (BRP) at that time.
Data available from: 2019.
Status of the figures:
The figures in this table are definite.
Changes as of December 24, 2025:
None, this is a new table.
When will new figures be published?
New figures from GPE 2025 will be published in the first quarter of 2026.
Description topics
- Full-time
- The number of hours that a person works in a standard or average working week is 35 hours or more.
This concerns the total number of hours across all jobs. - Professional status
- Classification of the employed labour force into:
Employee
- Permanent
- Flexible
- Self-employed
When a person has more than one job, the job in which most hours are worked, is used.- Permanent employee
- An employee with an employment contract for an indefinite period and for a fixed number of hours.
- Flexible employee
- An employee with an employment contract for a limited period or a flexible number of hours. This includes:
- Temporary employee, permanent prospect
- Temporary employee, >=1 year
- Temporary employee, <1 year
- On-call worker (including permanent and temporary employees with flexible hours)
- Temporary agency worker
- Employee flex, contract unknown.
- Self-employed person
- A person who works for his/her own account and risk
- in an own company or practice (self-employed entrepreneur), or
- as an owner-manager, or
- in the company or practice of a family member (contributing family worker), or
- as another self-employed person (for example in an independent profession).
- Employed as researcher
- A person who indicates in the questionnaire that they perform one or more of the following activities in their primary job:
— Developing new knowledge;
— Devising or developing new products;
— Devising or developing new processes, methods, or systems;
— Leading research projects. - Employed in academia
- A person who indicates in the questionnaire that their primary job is in University Higher Education or at a University Medical Center.
- Work related to PhD research
- A person who indicates in the questionnaire that their current postdoc appointment or current primary job is partly or strongly related to their PhD research.