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Press Release 06-002
All In a Week's Work
New report tells which doctorate holders work the most
January 3, 2006
Computer scientists and engineers work more than mathematicians or psychologists do, and biologists and agricultural scientists work more than everyone, says an NSF survey of the average work weeks of doctoral scientists and engineers.
Also, the report said, when the worker's household includes non-adult children, women declared shorter work weeks than did men who had the same number of children. In households with no children, women and men work equal numbers of hours.
Thomas B. Hoffer and Karen Grigorian, of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, analyzed data from NSF's 2003 Survery of Doctorate Recipients taken for the reference week of Oct. 1 of that year. The survey looked at 530,962 doctorate holders working in three broad sectors, including education, which was primarily university level teaching and research, industry and government. Educators averaged 50.6 hours of work for the week, while those in industry averaged 47.6 hours. Those employed by federal, state or local governments worked the fewest hours, averaging 45.2 per week.
As for the postdocs? They reported working 50.3 hours per week on average -- "less than the nontenured tenure-track faculty, but more than non-tenure track individuals, and not significantly different from tenured faculty," the survey says.
Although the differences between employment sectors and fields of work boil down to an extra hour or so a couple of days a week, the authors say the figures have only a 5 percent chance of being random variations.
Some highlights of the report:
All employment sectors
| Field of Doctorate |
Mean hours worked per week |
| Biological and agricultural sciences |
50.53 |
| Computer and information sciences |
49.33 |
| Engineering |
48.64 |
| Health sciences |
49.57 |
| Mathematical sciences |
47.33 |
| Physical Sciences |
48.26 |
| Psychology |
46.62 |
| Social sciences |
48.80 |
NSF published the InfoBrief, All In a Week's Work: Average Work Weeks of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers, in Dec. 2005.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Leslie Fink, National Science Foundation (703) 292-5395 lfink@nsf.gov
Program Contacts
John Tsapogas, National Science Foundation (703) 292-7799 jtsapogas@nsf.gov
Principal Investigators
Thomas B. Hoffer, NORC hoffer-tom@norc.uchicago.edu
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2009, its budget is $9.5 billion, which includes $3.0 billion provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to over 1,900 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 44,400 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
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