Fresh from the press: "The postdoc paradox: causes and manifestations" by Johannes Koenig and Anne Otto

The “postdoc paradox” describes the fact that a high degree of qualification match in academia is associated with poorer employment conditions, whereas the private sector offers better pay and job security, but at the cost of frequent qualification mismatch. Johannes König and Anne Otto examine and explain this phenomenon in their most recent article in the European Journal of Higher Education.

Koenig, J., & Otto, A. (2026). The postdoc paradox: causes and manifestations. European Journal of Higher Education, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2026.2718899

Based on the IAB-INCHER Panel of Earned Doctorates (IIPED), comprising employment biographies for 14,308 doctoral graduates in Germany, the authors find that 93% of postdocs hold expert-level positions, which require at least a master's degree, compared to 66% in the private sector. Yet academic positions are much less likely to be permanent or full-time, and pay is significantly lower. These gaps persist, by and large, during the early career phase. Prior private-sector exposure is the strongest individual-level predictor of leaving academia, pointing to information asymmetries that sustain the paradox. High-productivity graduates are most likely to stay in science despite great employment insecurity relative to the private sector. From a societal perspective, this preference-driven sorting effectively subsidizes knowledge generation, as researchers accept below-market conditions for intellectually demanding, autonomous work.