PhD graduates in Spain: Does it pay to study it abroad?

Purpose This paper studies early labor market effects of doing a PhD fully in Spain, partially abroad or fully abroad for a sample of recent young Spanish doctorate graduates. We check their pecuniary (wage) and non-pecuniary (education-job match) job qualities to see how well they fare in the labor market just after obtaining their PhDs. Design/methodology/approach We use 2019 data to see if Spanish PhDs obtain well-paid and matching jobs depending on where they completed their thesis. We distinguish between doing the PhD entirely in Spain, partially between Spain and abroad or completely abroad. We use inverse probability weighting methods to bring our treatment groups (doing a PhD partly or fully abroad) as close as possible to an experimental assignment. We also control for selection into employment to reduce the possible selection bias. Findings We find that most of the positive effects of studying abroad occur when people decide to live and work abroad after their PhD. This indicates a lack of adequate jobs for PhD holders in Spain. Nevertheless, we observe some positive wage returns to study abroad among those that remain in Spain. Originality/value There are virtually no studies on PhD careers in Spain from the last decade and very scarce research on the topic in general. We use very recent data and find strong indications of possible brain drain from of PhDs from Spain. Our research has direct policy implications as we study both pecuniary (wage) and non-pecuniary (education-job match) job qualities. The government needs to issue policies to increase wages and improve the matching of PhDs in the labor market, particularly out of academia.