Employed PhD graduates; labour characteristics

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Sex Margins PhD characteristics 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 71.9 72.6 17.5 9.5 79.0 32.5 68.5
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 72.4 78.3 10.3 11.1 79.8 31.9 66.6
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 70.8 57.6 36.8 5.4 77.1 34.0 73.4
01 Education 54.9 75.1 19.2 5.7 79.5 44.3 83.4
02 Design, arts, language and history 61.3 66.8 18.9 13.7 79.4 41.0 66.8
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 61.6 70.6 19.2 10.0 84.0 40.0 75.0
04 Law, business, administration, trade 74.8 75.2 13.4 11.0 78.3 36.3 74.9
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 73.7 77.5 17.6 4.6 84.6 24.7 60.8
06 Computing 80.5 77.9 12.1 10.1 90.8 27.2 72.8
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 80.9 80.4 11.2 8.0 86.3 17.8 68.0
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 73.5 73.4 14.6 10.5 86.9 23.7 70.9
09 Health and welfare 74.4 66.6 20.1 13.1 68.3 38.3 69.7
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 58.5 68.0 19.1 12.5 77.0 44.3 69.3
Lower bound 95% confidence interval Total 71.1 71.8 16.9 9.0 78.2 31.6 67.5
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 71.3 77.3 9.6 10.4 78.8 30.9 65.5
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 69.1 55.8 35.1 4.6 75.5 32.3 71.8
01 Education 47.8 68.4 14.2 3.1 73.1 37.3 77.5
02 Design, arts, language and history 56.6 62.2 15.5 10.8 75.3 36.4 62.2
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 58.9 68.1 17.2 8.5 81.9 37.3 72.6
04 Law, business, administration, trade 71.4 71.9 11.1 8.9 75.1 32.8 71.4
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 71.9 75.8 16.2 3.9 83.2 23.1 58.9
06 Computing 75.0 72.2 8.5 6.8 86.7 22.0 66.9
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 78.5 77.9 9.5 6.4 84.1 15.6 65.1
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 66.6 66.5 10.2 6.8 81.3 18.1 64.0
09 Health and welfare 72.8 64.9 18.7 11.9 66.6 36.5 68.0
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 51.7 61.4 14.3 8.6 70.8 37.8 62.6
Upper bound 95% confidence interval Total 72.8 73.5 18.3 10.1 79.8 33.4 69.4
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 73.4 79.3 11.0 11.8 80.7 33.0 67.7
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 72.4 59.4 38.5 6.4 78.6 35.7 75.0
01 Education 61.9 80.7 25.4 10.2 84.7 51.4 88.0
02 Design, arts, language and history 65.8 71.1 22.9 17.2 83.0 45.7 71.2
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 64.2 73.0 21.4 11.8 85.9 42.7 77.3
04 Law, business, administration, trade 77.9 78.3 16.2 13.5 81.2 39.9 78.0
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 75.3 79.0 19.1 5.5 86.0 26.4 62.6
06 Computing 85.0 82.7 16.8 14.7 93.8 33.1 78.0
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 83.2 82.7 13.2 9.9 88.3 20.2 70.7
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 79.3 79.4 20.4 15.9 91.0 30.5 77.0
09 Health and welfare 75.9 68.3 21.5 14.4 70.0 40.1 71.3
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 64.9 74.0 25.0 17.9 82.1 51.1 75.2
Sex: male Value Total 83.1 75.0 14.2 10.4 83.2 30.3 69.6
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 83.1 79.2 8.7 11.8 83.4 30.1 68.0
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 83.1 61.3 32.4 6.0 82.7 30.7 74.8
01 Education . . . . . . .
02 Design, arts, language and history 67.9 68.8 17.0 13.2 82.2 37.0 67.5
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 77.7 77.6 12.7 9.7 89.8 41.3 79.2
04 Law, business, administration, trade 83.0 76.5 11.1 12.4 78.6 35.6 77.8
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 82.0 79.4 15.4 4.8 87.3 23.7 61.4
06 Computing 83.2 78.9 11.4 9.7 91.7 24.4 73.5
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 86.6 81.3 10.1 8.1 87.7 16.9 69.1
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 83.5 77.9 10.4 10.4 84.4 21.9 66.2
09 Health and welfare 88.8 64.6 17.0 18.2 72.9 38.3 71.9
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 71.8 73.5 15.2 11.3 78.6 45.9 76.6
Lower bound 95% confidence interval Total 82.1 73.9 13.4 9.7 82.2 29.1 68.4
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 82.0 78.0 7.9 10.9 82.3 28.8 66.6
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 81.0 58.7 29.9 4.7 80.5 28.3 72.3
01 Education . . . . . . .
02 Design, arts, language and history 62.0 63.0 12.9 9.7 77.1 31.4 61.5
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 74.2 74.1 10.3 7.5 87.1 37.4 75.9
04 Law, business, administration, trade 79.1 72.3 8.4 9.7 74.6 31.3 73.7
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 80.2 77.4 13.8 3.9 85.7 21.8 59.1
06 Computing 77.6 72.9 7.7 6.3 87.5 19.1 67.3
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 84.2 78.6 8.2 6.4 85.3 14.6 66.0
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 76.0 69.7 6.2 6.2 77.1 15.5 57.6
09 Health and welfare 87.1 61.9 15.0 16.2 70.5 35.7 69.4
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 61.9 63.7 9.2 6.4 69.0 36.1 67.1
Upper bound 95% confidence interval Total 84.0 76.1 15.1 11.2 84.1 31.5 70.7
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 84.1 80.4 9.5 12.8 84.4 31.5 69.3
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 85.0 63.9 34.9 7.5 84.6 33.2 77.1
01 Education . . . . . . .
02 Design, arts, language and history 73.2 74.1 22.1 17.8 86.3 42.9 72.9
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 80.9 80.8 15.7 12.3 92.0 45.3 82.2
04 Law, business, administration, trade 86.2 80.2 14.5 15.7 82.1 40.2 81.4
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 83.7 81.3 17.2 5.9 88.8 25.7 63.6
06 Computing 87.5 83.9 16.4 14.7 94.6 30.5 78.9
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 88.6 83.8 12.2 10.2 89.7 19.6 72.1
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... 89.1 84.3 17.0 17.0 89.7 30.0 73.9
09 Health and welfare 90.4 67.1 19.1 20.4 75.2 41.0 74.2
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 80.0 81.5 24.2 19.0 85.8 55.9 84.0
Sex: female Value Total 55.1 69.0 22.6 8.2 72.7 35.8 66.8
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 53.8 76.7 13.1 9.9 73.5 35.1 64.2
Time since PhD: more than 5 years 57.7 53.6 41.5 4.8 71.1 37.4 72.0
01 Education 43.0 73.1 20.6 6.3 76.8 48.0 84.4
02 Design, arts, language and history 49.9 63.3 22.2 14.5 74.6 47.9 65.7
03 Journalism, social, behavioural sc... 46.1 63.8 25.5 10.4 78.4 38.7 71.0
04 Law, business, administration, trade 58.0 72.7 18.2 8.2 77.8 37.6 68.9
05 Mathematics, physical sciences 55.1 73.2 22.6 4.3 78.7 26.9 59.3
06 Computing . . . . . . .
07 Engineering, manufacturing, con... 57.1 76.5 16.1 7.4 80.4 21.3 63.1
08 Agriculture, veterinary medicine, ... . . . . . . .
09 Health and welfare 61.1 68.5 23.0 8.3 64.0 38.3 67.6
10 Services . . . . . . .
Type of education is unknown 45.9 62.9 22.7 13.7 75.4 42.9 62.4
Lower bound 95% confidence interval Total 53.5 67.6 21.4 7.3 71.3 34.4 65.3
Time since PhD: 5 years or less 51.8 75.0 11.9 8.7 71.7 33.2 62.3
Source: CBS.
Explanation of symbols

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.