What determines PhD graduates’ employability in Chinese academia? A graduate capital perspective
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7148799 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xiaoli Jing (0000-0001-7595-1212, Beijing Normal University), Sitong Wang (0000-0003-3909-5572, McGill University, corresponding author), Zhaohui Sun (0000-0001-9011-6426, North China Electric Power University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-63 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Sociology of Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0142-5692 • E-ISSN: 1465-3346 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01425692.2025.2578231 |
| OpenAlex | W4415650939 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 61 |
Chinese academic labour market is increasingly competitive, yet the factors shaping PhD graduates’ employability remain under-explored. This study investigates how PhD graduates in the humanities and social sciences, including both domestic PhDs and PhD returnees, mobilise different forms of capital in seeking employment in Chinese academic labour market. Drawing on Tomlinson’s graduate capital model and Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field, and habitus, we conducted qualitative interviews with 27 Chinese early-career academics (11 domestic, 16 returnees). Findings reveal that employability is relational, stratified, and context-specific rather than individual possession. Human and cultural capitals are crucial, while social capital often proves decisive, disadvantaging returnees unfamiliar with domestic networks. Identity, psychological, and economic capitals mediate self-presentation and opportunity, while structurally contingent ‘fortune’ shapes access in unpredictable ways. Extending Tomlinson’s framework, this study theorises PhD graduate employability as dynamic and field-dependent, with implications for policy reform, institutional support, and equity in academic hiring
Capital (architecture) · Cultural capital · Employability · Graduate students · Higher education · Human capital · Perspective (graphical) · Social capital · Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions · Higher Education and Employability · Higher Education Governance and Development
Phenomenology of Practice
Forms of graduate capital and their relationship to graduate employability
Thematic analysis
Who is more popular in the faculty recruitment of Chinese elite universities
An autoethnographic narrative of the diasporic experience of a Chinese female Ph.D. returnee’s entry into the domestic academic job market during Covid-19
Unsettling academia
A good university or a good city
Finding a tenure‐track position in academia in North America
Graduate employability and international education
What drives Chinese scholars to publish in international journals? Motivations and implications
Forms of agency enacted by international Ph.D. holders in Australia and Ph.D. returnees in China to negotiate employability
Constructing a graduate career future
Is the research performance of Chinese returnees better than that of their local counterparts
Ageism and age anxiety experienced by Chinese doctoral students in enacting a “successful” career script in academia
The multi-dimensional, multi-level impact of social capital on academic job search in China
Australian PhD graduates’ agency in navigating their career pathways
Returnee faculty responses to internationalizing “academic ecology” for creating world-class universities in China’ elite universities
Academic stratification and faculty hiring networks
Hysteresis of habitus
Reconceptualising employability of returnees
Exploring Chinese doctoral graduates’ career choices and gender differences through the lens of rational choice theory
The Logic of Practice
International Mentorship and Research Collaboration
To Be or Not to Be an Academic
A critical examination of the use of ‘capitals approach’ in graduate employability research
Forms of capital and agency as mediations in negotiating employability of international graduate migrants
Riding over the National and Global Disequilibria
How the World-Class University Project Affects Scientific Productivity? Evidence from a Survey of Faculty Members in China
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Job-seeking narratives
When sojourners return
What really contributes to employability of PhD graduates in uncertain labour markets
Publish or perish
When the halo of my overseas credentials disappeared
It's all becoming a habitus
Luck, chance, and happenstance?Perceptions of success and failure amongst fixed-term academic staff inUKhigher education
Transitioning beyond Academia
Incentivising international publications
Nothing but publishing
To and from the university
Rethinking graduate employability
Institutional prestige, academic supervision and research productivity of international PhD students
Grappling with Chance in a Changing World
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |