Retirement in Western Germany – How Workplace Tasks Influence Its Timing

In this article, task data from the German Qualification and Career Survey (BIBB/IAB) is matched against the Sample of Integrated Labour Market Biographies (SIAB) to investigate what patterns are discernible in retirement between 1985 and 2005 in Western Germany. Set against a background of pension reforms and substantial structural change, the article asks whether the nature of occupational tasks has any significant effect on the timing of retirement. Through the use of event history analysis, the article reveals that having a large percentage of routine manual tasks in one’s job is associated with a greater likelihood of a job holder leaving employment, while having medium to high percentages of non-routine manual tasks in one’s job will tend to decrease that likelihood. There is also evidence that holding a job that includes a medium to high concentration of analytical and interactive tasks will tend to reduce the likelihood of early retirement.

Working from Home, Wages, and Regional Inequality in the Light of COVID-19

We use the most recent wave of the German Qualifications and Career Survey to reveal a substantial wage premium in a Mincer regression for workers performing their job from home. The premium accounts for more than 10% and persists within narrowly defined jobs as well as after controlling for workplace characteristics. In a next step, we provide evidence on substantial regional variation in the share of jobs that can be done from home in Germany. Our analysis reveals a strong, positive relation between the share of jobs with working from home opportunities and the mean worker income in a district. Assuming that jobs with the opportunity of remote work are more crisis proof, our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic might affect poorer regions to a greater extent. Hence, examining regional disparities is central for policy-makers in choosing economic policies to mitigate the consequences of this crisis.

Through Their Own Eyes: The Implications of COVID-19 for PhD Students

COVID-19 is expected to radically alter higher education in the United States and to further limit the availability of tenure-track academic positions. How has the pandemic and its associated fallout affected doctoral students’ career aspirations and priorities? We investigate this question by comparing responses to a PhD career survey prior to and following significant developments in the pandemic. We find little evidence that the pandemic caused substantial shifts in PhD students’ aspirations and priorities. However, some differences emerge when considering later dates in our survey period, particularly among more senior students who express a greater interest in some non-academic careers and job characteristics. Contrary to expectation, we also find evidence that the pandemic improved some students’ perceptions of their academic departments. In our conclusion, we speculate whether steps taken by the comparatively well-resourced institution that we study helped to mitigate some of the more negative consequences of the pandemic.

Kształcenie menedżerów kultury na przykładzie studiów podyplomowych zarządzanie kulturą

The Education of Culture Managers: The Example of the Postgraduate Program in Cultural Management at the Jagiellonian University The aim of this article is the presentation of the results of an evaluation of the postgraduate program in Cultural Management at the Jagiellonian University in 2010–2019. The introductory part of the text presents the circumstances of the emergence of the program and its later development. The evaluation itself is based on three elements: an analysis of the students’ profile, an alumni career survey, and an analysis of the environment. The collected data have been supplemented with information obtained from interviews with students.

Gender Inequity during the Ph.D.: Females in the Life Sciences Benefit Less from Their Integration into the Scientific Community

Female researchers remain underrepresented in higher academic ranks, even within female-dominated fields, such as the life sciences. The phenomenon is often attributed to women’s lower publication productivity. The current article explores gender differences with respect to integration into the scientific community, pursued tasks during the Ph.D. (e.g., teaching and research), and publication productivity in the life sciences. Moreover, it explores how these variables relate to the intention of pursuing an academic research career. Survey data with recent Ph.D. graduates from the life sciences in Germany (N = 736) were analyzed through descriptive and multivariate analysis. Females had fewer publications as lead author (1.4 vs. 1.9, p = 0.05). There were no differences in pursued tasks, perceived integration into the scientific community, and co-authorship. However, Ph.D. characteristics affected females and males differently. Only male Ph.D. graduates benefited from being integrated into their scientific community by an increase in lead author publications. In contrast to male Ph.D. graduates, women’s academic career intentions were significantly affected by their integration into the scientific community and co-authorship. Results suggest that women may benefit less from their integration into the scientific community and may ascribe more importance to networks for their career progress.

Study skills acquired by university alumni: analysis of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University graduates’ career survey

The career analysis conducted among the alumni of universities is dominated in Poland by the tendency to verify which competencies (demanded mostly by the labour market) they have acquired and how they have managed to cope with finding employment. The ability of studying is a rarely discussed problem, which is unjustifiably considered necessary only during the course of study. However, this ability leads to shaping the extent of academic thinking, also understood as a specific way of solving problems – not only purely academic ones but professional ones as well. The author of the presented article, while referring to pedagogical concepts of S. Hessen and D. Benner, has developed a theoretical model of study skills and subsequently conducted its empirical verification by performing a repeated analysis of selected data obtained in 2016 during the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University graduates’ career analysis.The conducted replication has proved that, firstly, the exploration of study skills among the alumni has not been taken into account when examining careers of the graduates, which might have served as feedback regarding the modification of the education process at the university; secondly, it seems that the graduates have acquired study competence at least to a certain degree, which finds evidence in success achieved by most of them – i.e. finding employment; and, thirdly, satisfaction of completing studies is linked with the feeling of having the right competence and consequently with recommending the university to others.