A network approach to PhD students’ well-being: insights into risk and protective factors

Due to the high demands of doctoral education, concerns have been raised about PhD students’ well-being. In addition to the adverse individual impact, poor well-being of PhD students is also problematic for universities, which might lose talented researchers via absenteeism and drop-out. Despite substantial knowledge about factors influencing well-being in academia, we know little about how these factors jointly promote or impede PhD students’ well-being. We applied network analysis, alongside regression analysis, to cross-sectional data from 665 PhD students in the Netherlands to explore how PhD students’ job demands, job resources, and personal resources are associated with subjective and archival well-being indices. Findings suggest that job demands, job resources, and personal resources influence PhD students’ well-being directly and indirectly via associations with other factors. Among job demands, both publication pressure and work-home conflict were associated with higher burnout. Additionally, work-home conflict was associated with higher sickness absenteeism. Psychological capital stood out as the most important resource within the network and was related to lower burnout, higher engagement, and lower sickness absenteeism. By highlighting the importance of personal resources, particularly psychological capital, for PhD students’ well-being, this study can guide the development of interventions to promote PhD students’ well-being.