The proportion of women is increasing at all career stages. This is according to the current Federal Report on Early Career Researchers (BuWiK). Although it can still be observed that the proportion of women working in science decreases as the qualification and career stage progresses (“leaky pipeline”), this happens at a lower rate than before. For example, the proportion of women in W2 first appointments is 46% - in the 2021 report it was still 34%. For W3 first-time appointments, the proportion of women rose significantly from 27% to 36% between 2018 and 2022.
According to the federal report, a lot has also changed in terms of career paths and employment conditions in recent years. For example, the average contract duration of doctoral students has increased from 22.1 months to 29.6 months compared to the last report from 2021. Doctoral graduates also earn a higher income on average than non-doctoral graduates. Five years after graduation, doctoral graduates from the 2013 cohort earned on average almost 20,000 euros more gross per year than non-doctoral graduates. Doctoral graduates are also more likely to hold management positions than non-graduates. According to the DZHW Graduate Panel (2009 cohort), 40% of doctoral graduates are in a management position ten years after graduation. In contrast, this figure is only 25% for Bachelor's and Master's graduates.
The report also contains interesting findings on careers after the doctorate: seven years after the doctorate, only 24% of doctoral graduates work in the academic system, almost half (48%) work in the private sector at this point, 24% work in hospitals and doctors' surgeries and 4% in other public services. A career outside academia is therefore the norm for doctoral graduates. Doctoral candidates should therefore think about their career ambitions at an early stage and take advantage of the many qualification opportunities offered by the University of Bonn.