Postdoctoral Researchers: The Impact of Labor Regulations and Visa Policy

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Doctoral students and post-doctoral appointments are critical inputs to research and develop scientific expertise. The combination of labor supply and research demand has fueled the increasing prevalence of post-doctoral appointments at U.S. colleges and universities, with numbers rising from 18,399 in 1980 to 63,593 in 2014. Even as job opportunities for faculty and permanent employment in university science have stagnated, the number of post-doc appointments has continued to grow, particularly in the life sciences and biomedical fields. Concerns about basic employment protections and the long-term health of the scientific talent pool stem from modest earnings for long hours and uncertain long-term job prospects. Because the pipeline of new scientific discoveries and innovation depends on the flow and persistence of talent in the scientific workforce, this research informs questions and policy critical to the progress of science and economic prosperity. This research examines how labor market regulations and immigration policies affect the scientific labor market in terms of what universities must pay research personnel, the costs of graduate education, and the flow of doctorate students and doctorate recipients from abroad. This research focuses on three types of policies affecting university scientific personnel: visa requirements and terms for student (F- 1), exchange visitor (J-1), and high-skill specialty workers (H-1B); tuition charges and other required expenses for doctorate students, and; labor rules including the proposed change in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) minimum salary threshold for exclusion from overtime requirements. This project builds a database from administrative salary data from public universities and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) releases from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of Homeland Security which include doctorate level individuals with F-1, J-1, and H-1B visa status. Econometric analysis will be used to identify the demand for scientific personnel, including effects on earnings and the distribution of employment.