95% of postdocs "theoretically" starving

In a recent study conducted by Dr. Samir T. Gupta, a statistics postdoc at Yale University, 95% of the world's postdocs are starving, theoretically.

"Of course we are not literally starving. We calculate a postdoc's income over the course of his or her entire career, by extrapolating from an expected salary increase weighted by the actual possibility of appointment to a tenure-track position, and find that the average wage of a postdoc comes to $1.49. Distributing this globally, we find 95% of all postdocs are living below poverty," said Dr. Gupta.

"This is despite the fact that a postdoc's lifespan is considerably reduced due to stress, over-work, and bad living conditions. Sad but true."

Although the limited employment opportunities for postdocs have only recently come to public attention, even postdocs themselves were not aware of the severity of their situation. Others argued that Dr. Gupta's theory is oversimplified. Dr. Keisuke Yoshida, Professor Emeritus at Duke University, argues that "the theory does not include factors such as the joy of possibly making a new discovery, which is, theoretically, priceless. By including that into the calculations, the wage should jump to infinity."

This finding will be reported in next month's issue of Nature.

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