Yang Feng
Zhiyong Zhong*- School of Education, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China
Previous research has extensively explored the motivations for pursuing a PhD, aiming to answer the question of “why pursue a doctorate.” However, it has largely overlooked the group that ultimately abandons this pursuit. This paper takes rational choice theory as the analytical framework, and through in-depth interviews with 25 humanities and social sciences academic master’s students, it explores the dynamic process and the complex factors behind the changes in the choice of, with the aim of answering the question of “Why do master’s students who initially have the willingness to pursue a doctoral degree ultimately give up?.” The study reveals that their decision-making process undergoes three distinct stages. That is, the stage of motivation formation based on social rationality, the stage of resource allocation based on conditional integration, and the stage of decision-making and trade-off based on survival rationality and economic rationality. This dynamic process and its decision-making mechanism are deeply influenced by individuals’ social class, supporting the effectively maintained inequality theory. The conclusions offer important implications for refining graduate education policies and understanding the relationship between doctoral degree attainment and family background.
1 Introduction
In the context of the era of deepening globalization, doctoral education, as the highest level of the higher education system, plays a key role in promoting scientific progress, technological innovation, and competitiveness enhancement in the global knowledge economy (Neumann and Tan, 2011). In this context, the academic community has focused on the core topic of the quality of doctoral education, and has carried out research on the motivation to study for a doctorate (Guerin et al., 2014), supervisor guidance (Buirski, 2021), course teaching (Bao, 2021), and evaluation framework (Ward and Brennan, 2018). Among them, the motivation to pursue a PhD is a key factor affecting the quality of doctoral education (Sverdlik et al., 2018). With the deepening of research, the research perspective has been gradually extended from doctoral students’ motivation to master’s students’ willingness to study, focusing on exploring the question of “why individuals choose to study for a doctoral degree.” However, they have neglected those who have abandoned the doctoral program, or have confused the two groups. This makes our understanding of graduate education pathway choice incomplete, and makes it difficult to reveal the complex psychological mechanisms of individuals’ decision-making process in doctoral studies.
In order to delve deeper into the factors that may hinder potential PhD students from entering doctoral education, this study takes China as a case for analysis. As the world’s largest producer of doctoral degrees (Bao et al., 2016), China’s trends in doctoral enrollment have significant implications for the global academic labor market. The Chinese doctoral education system exhibits the following characteristics: First, in terms of discipline structure, it emphasizes both foundational disciplines and vigorously develops emerging and interdisciplinary fields, aligning with new trends in scientific, technological, and societal development. Second, in terms of training models, it has established a dual-track system comprising academic and professional degrees. This study focuses on full-time academic doctoral programs, which typically span 4 years and dominate the system with high academic prestige and social recognition (Luo and Li, 2020). These programs operate under a supervisor responsibility system, where supervisors wield considerable authority in key processes such as admissions, research supervision, and thesis proposal and defense evaluations. Doctoral supervisors usually need to have high academic qualifications and professorial titles. Third, regarding admissions, the “application-assessment” system is predominant. Doctoral supervisors are allocated a fixed annual quota for doctoral admissions, with most candidates being academic master’s students. Additionally, in traditional perceptions, doctoral degree holders are regarded as intellectual elites, representing the pinnacle of educational achievement. Despite the growing number of doctorates, societal recognition of doctoral qualifications remains high.
With the expansion of China’s doctoral training scale and the implementation of doctoral expansion policies (Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, State Council, 2025), academic master’s students have become the primary source for further doctoral studies (Li et al., 2022). Among them, humanities and social sciences (HSS) students often hold more traditional views of doctoral education when deciding to pursue a PhD, seeing it as a degree essential for entering an academic career. Consequently, they exhibit stronger academic career motivation compared to their counterparts in science and technology fields (Diogo et al., 2022). Crucially, a significant proportion of HSS master’s students explicitly express their intention to pursue a doctorate at the outset of their master’s studies. However, this initial academic aspiration faces a stark reality. International surveys indicated that an increasing number of HSS PhDs struggle to secure stable academic positions or can only find non-academic employment, with nearly one-third no longer engaged in research-related work (Qing, 2019). This trend has dampened the overall enthusiasm for doctoral studies among master’s students, including many within HSS who explicitly declared their intention to pursue a PhD at the beginning of their programs. This phenomenon warrants serious attention. Existing research points out that although China’s HSS disciplinary structure has historically been advanced relative to the developmental level of its tertiary industrial structure, there has been a noticeable decline in the development level of doctoral disciplinary structures in recent years (Zhao et al., 2025). If the willingness of HSS master’s students to pursue doctorates continues to decline, it may lead to a contraction in the scale of PhD training in these fields, thereby affecting the coordinated development of the disciplinary structure and the industrial structure. Simultaneously, we must fully recognize the unique value of the humanities. As technology advances, the humanities’ exploration of cultural values, the meaning of human behavior, and ethical issues becomes increasingly vital (Chen and Luo, 2024). Furthermore, the cultural self-awareness cultivated by HSS scholars in their research helps challenge global cultural and cognitive hegemony, offering novel academic discourses to address global knowledge asymmetries and promote knowledge pluralism (Shen et al., 2025).
Based on the above research status and background, this study focuses on Chinese humanities and social sciences academic master’s students (HSSAMS), employing in-depth interviews to explore the question of “why HSSAMS who initially have the intention to study for a PhD eventually give up pursuing a PhD.” In an era of increasingly frequent international academic exchanges, conducting an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon—which embodies distinctive Chinese features while being intrinsically linked to global higher education talent development—holds multidimensional significance. It can provide guidance for individuals’ academic development planning and career choices, while also helping to fill gaps in existing research areas and revealing the complex motivations and structural constraints underlying the academic career path choices of high-level talent (especially in HSS) under the specific social and cultural background of China and the transition period of higher education. Additionally, it can offer a unique Chinese perspective and case study experience for international higher education development, and offer a basis for optimizing doctoral admissions mechanisms and career support system construction.
2 Literature review
The decision to pursue a doctorate encompasses both doctoral motivation (the driving factors behind the choice) and doctoral intention (the outcome of the decision) (Gao and Zhi, 2024). Thus, the concepts related to the choice to study for a PhD fall within the scope of this study. Existing research indicates that motivation to pursue a PhD is closely linked to critical factors such as academic passion, academic resilience, and dropout rates (Sverdlik et al., 2018). Positive motivation for PhD can inspire students to have higher academic enthusiasm and show stronger engagement in the doctoral study process, which in turn affects the value-added of their own abilities and the final quality of their PhD (Liu and Xie, 2022). Consequently, academics have explored doctoral motivation among various groups, including rural students (Yang and Li, 2023), women (Yi and Ramos, 2022), working professionals (Dai et al., 2021), international students (Yang et al., 2017), and ethnic minorities (Wyche, 2020). These studies revealed that there were differences in the motivation of different groups to pursue a PhD, such as personal motivation and promotion of professional development were the main factors in the decision of in-service teachers to pursue a PhD (Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al., 2017), whereas rural students mostly chose to pursue a PhD due to upward mobility aspirations and familial educational expectations (Yang and Li, 2023). Despite these variations, doctoral motivations generally fall into two broad categories: academic motivation based on self-worth realization and non-academic motivation driven by the external environment (Horta et al., 2024), of which the latter tends to predominate.
As research advances, scholarly focus has progressively expanded from motivations themselves to the mechanisms influencing decision-making, forming a decision pathway of motivation—intention—action. Given that master’s education has traditionally been positioned as preparatory for doctoral studies (Jung and Lee, 2019), the research scope has correspondingly extended to the master’s level. Three primary factors have been identified as key influences. At the individual level, they include ascribed factors represented by gender and family background (Seehuus, 2019) and self-initiated factors represented by one’s own academic ability (Xu and Fang, 2020). The former may have a potential foundational influence on their motivation to study for a doctorate; the latter is often formed through the individual’s acquired efforts to learn and accumulate, and plays an inescapable role in the decision-making process of studying for a doctoral degree. Within social networks, supervisors exert considerable influence through mentorship and support, positively shaping individuals’ intentions to pursue a PhD (Wollast et al., 2023). In addition, the choice of peer group can also have a subtle influence on an individual’s intention to pursue a PhD (Xu, 2021). At the structural-environmental level, they specifically include institutional and non-institutional academic environments (Lei, 2019)—such as scholarship and financial aid systems, academic atmosphere, etc.—as well as the current employment environment and doctoral employment prospects (Rossello, 2025). The combined effect of these external environmental factors largely influences individuals’ trade-offs and decisions regarding pursuing a doctoral degree.
However, extant research exhibits notable limitations: Methodologically, conflating students with and without doctoral intentions obscures heterogeneous decision-making mechanisms (Xu and Cen, 2021). Theoretically, disproportionate focus on “why pursue” while neglecting “why abandon” creates critical explanatory gaps—failing to reveal dynamic transitions from initial intention to final action, and particularly obscuring the underlying drivers of intention reversal.
3 Theoretical framework
Existing research have employed quantitative rational choice models to study students’ decisions to pursue master’s degrees (Neumeyer, 2025). Although such models can identify the statistical significance influencing factors, they struggle to capture the dynamic complexity in the decision-making process. The core question addressed in this study is, by its very nature, a dynamic process of intention shift. This decision-making is embedded within the life course of academic socialization, career perception reconstruction, and interaction with institutional environments. Therefore, this study adopts Coleman’s rational choice theory as an analytical framework and uses the qualitative paradigm to deeply analyze the subjective logic of actors. This theory applies economic methods to sociological inquiry, with its core proposition asserting that individual actors always make purposeful choices among different actions or alternatives based on the principle of maximizing benefits, thereby satisfying individual preferences and achieving utility maximization (Coleman, 1999). The decision of a master’s student whether to pursue a PhD can be viewed as the outcome of complex rational deliberation by an individual. This aligns with Coleman’s perspective of using “rationality” to explain purposeful action in a broad sense. Coleman’s proposed system of action comprises three core elements: actors, resources, and interests (Coleman, 1999), forming the micro-foundation for analysis. As rational agents and actors, master’s students make choices that align with their interest preferences based on the resources they possess or can exchange. Essentially, shifts in the decision to pursue doctoral studies reflect a process of reconfiguring resources and interest preferences. Within the Chinese context, scholars have further delineated the practical manifestations of rational choice into a graded hierarchy based on the level of pursuit, ranked from high to low as: survival rationality, economic rationality, and social rationality (Ou, 2012). Survival rationality prioritizes securing or improving living conditions as the core decision-making logic. Economic rationality focuses on maximizing economic benefits, seeking increases in personal or family income. Social rationality pursues non-economic goals such as social status, reputation, and emotional connections. This demonstrates that an actor’s “interests” encompass not only economic benefits but also political, cultural, emotional, and other objectives (Yang and Xie, 2006). This categorization enhances the theory’s explanatory power in the local context.
Furthermore, Coleman argues that rational choice actions always occur under the guidance of certain norms. Social norms define what constitutes the “right action.” Deeply embedded within the action system as decision-making rules, social norms not only guide the pathways of resource conversion by defining legitimate actions but also function as macro-level factors regulating the realization of the social value of a doctoral degree. Simultaneously, individual choices are inevitably influenced by the cultural environment in which they are situated (Swidler, 2001), particularly in China, which is profoundly shaped by the Confucian intellectual tradition. Therefore, we also need to attend to the underlying cultural motivations behind rational choices to more comprehensively grasp the complexity of the logic of action (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Rational choice theory framework.
4 Methods
4.1 Research design
The shift in the choice of studying for a doctorate is a dynamic process of complex decision-making under conditions of incomplete information. This study adopts a qualitative research approach, utilizing in-depth interviews to examine participants’ family backgrounds, academic trajectories and the dynamic process of PhD pursuit choice, thereby uncovering the underlying influencing factors and mechanisms. Based on a review of relevant literature and theoretical frameworks, and drawing from prior research on doctoral application decisions, the interviews were preliminarily structured around five dimensions: (1) the motivation and reasons for the initial decision to apply for a PhD; (2) preparation and efforts made for the doctoral applications; (3) the key points, reasons, and decision-making change process of the abandonment of doctoral pursuits; (4) factors influencing the shift in decisions; and (5) the consequences and personal reflections resulting from the decision change. These five dimensions form a complete logical chain, encompassing the antecedents, process, and consequences of decision-making: Dimension 1 provides the starting point of the decision; dimension 2 reflects individual investment and feasibility assessment; dimension 3 reveals the dynamic evolution of individual decision-making; dimension 4 explains the formation mechanism; and dimension 5 demonstrates the actual impact of the decision, thereby comprehensively characterizing the dynamic process and underlying mechanisms of the shift in doctoral intentions.
This outline was first reviewed by two education scholars with extensive qualitative research experience. Based on their feedback, modifications were made to enhance the scientific rigor, relevance, and logical coherence of the questions. Subsequently, a pre-interview involving three participants tested the clarity, difficulty, and leading nature of the questions. Feedback guided adjustments to phrasing, sequence, and follow-up prompts, ensuring ease of understanding and free expression for respondents. This process culminated in the final, comprehensive interview outline.
4.2 Data collection
This study employed a purposive sampling strategy, with the core selection criterion being that participants must possess the key experience of having “initially expressed a clear intention to pursue a doctorate but ultimately deciding against it during their master’s studies.” We did not preset any conditions regarding participants’ family socioeconomic status. Recruitment was conducted through academic networks, social media, and snowball sampling to maximize coverage of HSS master’s students with this specific experience. Finally, 25 students in HSS fields who initially intended to pursue a PhD but later abandoned this plan for in-depth interviews. The study participants included both current senior master’s students and master’s graduates, encompassing multiple disciplines from both “Double First-Class” universities and regular higher education institutions. Pre-interviews revealed that family background constituted a significant factor influencing the decision to pursue doctoral studies. Consequently, parental occupation was incorporated into the analytical framework as a key indicator for measuring family capital (see Table 1). Formal interviews were conducted online via Tencent Meeting, with each session lasting approximately 35–50 min to maximize data collection. A total of 230,000 words of interview transcripts were obtained. Throughout the process, the principles of educational ethics were strictly adhered to Chen (2000). Prior to interviews, participants were informed of the study’s purpose, data usage, and confidentiality measures, with their informed consent obtained. All interviews were audio-recorded, and participants’ personal information was anonymized and kept strictly confidential.
Table 1. Participant information (N = 25).
4.3 Data analysis
This study employed thematic analysis to systematically process the interview data (Creswell, 2012). After eliminating invalid information, the organized interview transcripts were imported into NVivo 12 software for systematic coding, following these steps: First, open coding. Through sentence-by-sentence close reading of all interview texts, free from theoretical presuppositions, initial concepts and categories were extracted from the raw data, striving to remain faithful to the interviewees’ authentic expressions. Second, axial coding. Building upon open coding, the preliminary concepts and categories were repeatedly compared, synthesized, and refined. Codes with similar meanings were clustered into more generalizable core categories, and the intrinsic connections between different categories were mapped out. Third, thematic extraction. The resulting core categories were reviewed, compared, classified, and integrated with concepts from the study’s theoretical framework. This process ultimately yielded meaningful themes capable of systematically explaining the research question, thereby constructing a framework that systematically elucidates the dynamic process and underlying mechanisms influencing the shift in doctoral pursuit choices among HSSAMS.
To ensure the reliability and validity of the research, we implemented multiple quality control measures. First, text coding was conducted independently by two trained researchers. After preliminary coding, the results from both coders were compared, yielding a coding consistency coefficient (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.81). Discrepancies were resolved through discussion and adjudication procedures. Second, to validate theoretical saturation, this study employed a reserve sample approach. Following the minimum sample principle proposed by Guest et al. (2006), approximately 10% of the total sample (i.e., 2 interviews) was reserved as a test sample. These reserved texts underwent independent coding analysis, and the results were compared against the preliminary coding framework. The validation results indicated that the additional data did not yield new concepts or categories, confirming the achievement of theoretical saturation. Furthermore, after the preliminary analysis results were formed, we invited some interviewees to verify the findings to ensure they accurately reflected their genuine experiences and feelings.
5 Results
This section presents and analyzes the main findings from the interviews. The dynamic decision-making process of HSSAMS regarding doctoral pursuit reflects their in-depth understanding of the value of a PhD and their reflective reconsideration of choices. As purposive rational actors, these students have certain interest preferences (Coleman, 1999). Constrained by external social norms and equipped with varying resources, their preferences evolve, leading to corresponding shifts in their doctoral pursuit decisions.
5.1 Social rationality: initial motivation to pursue a PhD
5.1.1 Academic pursuit
An intrinsic drive— a strong interest in researching specific topics within their discipline (I3, I6, I12, I13)—motivated them to have the willingness to choose to pursue a doctorate. Those with academic pursuit and full of academic passion can often stay quiet and be dedicated to their studies, i.e., they have the characteristics of enduring loneliness and sitting on the bench (I3, I5, I7). At the same time, they also indicated that they are not good at dealing with complicated interpersonal relationships in enterprises (I5, I21). Therefore, focusing on academic research became a way for them to build on their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. Additionally, most academically oriented students had prior research training and achievements during their undergraduate studies, reinforcing their confidence. Consequently, they were initially inclined to continue toward a PhD.
During my summer internship in my first year of graduate school, I realized I neither suited nor enjoyed the corporate work environment. The process-driven tasks felt stifling to me. In contrast, I recognized that I preferred and excelled at academic research, harboring a deep interest in exploring numerous topics within sociology. Pursuing a PhD would afford me the time and opportunity for more in-depth inquiry. Consequently, my desire to pursue doctoral studies was quite strong at that time. (I12)
5.1.2 Faculty position in higher education
Becoming a university professor remains the optimal career choice for many. In their view, compared with the highly competitive corporate employees and stable but poorly-paid civil servants, academia offers financial comfort, work-life balance, and high social status (I1, I5, I8). This is also in line with the stereotype of university teachers in Chinese society. Thus, a doctoral degree becomes a critical credential for entering the academic labor market. Beyond career pragmatism, the phenomenon of cult of education has also added a halo to doctoral degrees. Whether it is to make up for the elite school complex, or to climb to the top of the pyramid of the education system (I1, I4), it reflects the symbolic connotation and special meaning that the master’s student group gives to the doctoral degree.
I pursued an academic master’s degree for two reasons: first, I didn’t want to become an elementary or middle school teacher; second, I had always intended to continue my studies because I planned to become a university professor, so I wanted to elevate my academic credentials. There was also a personal desire involved—I find the idea of pursuing education “to the very end” incredibly appealing; it just sounds cool. For me, pursuing a PhD was simply one life choice among many, and being a university professor represented a respectable and high-caliber career path. (I1)
The findings above confirmed that academic motivation driven by academic pursuits and non-academic motivation oriented toward faculty position in higher education constituted the two primary types of motivation for pursuing a PhD among master’s students (Cokley, 2015).
5.2 Attempts and struggles under resource control
5.2.1 Academic passion: the key weight of the game
Academic passion serves as an intrinsic driver for doctoral researchers, providing sustained motivation to pursue scholarly ideals (Turner and McAlpine, 2011). Notably, those initially motivated by social rationality possess at least a baseline interest in academia. However, the intensity and durability of this interest often fluctuate during their master’s studies, manifesting in two distinct patterns:
It was but a fleeting academic spark. Some students initially had certain visions and fantasies about academic research. But when they truly entered the life of graduate students, facing the double pressure of courses and after-school tasks, they had to squeeze as much time as possible for research training. However, the interviewees reported that “the course load is overwhelming, time management is chaotic, and research requires extraordinary self-discipline—I simply lack the motivation” (I1). Or they lacked patience in scientific research training, and easily gave up in the face of difficulties, and then defined themselves as “not cut out for academia.” In addition, the absence of tangible research outputs further diminishes their enthusiasm. One student noted:
I’m more utilitarian in my research, hoping for immediate results and unable to achieve a state of pure research “for the love of it”. (I6)
Academic work serving as an emotional sanctuary. Grounded in Collins (2004) theory of emotional energy, changes in an individual’s emotional energy in the academic arena can cause changes in academic passion. Positive affective energy gained by individuals in academic research, such as a sense of accomplishment and a sense of belonging, motivates HSSAMS to actively engage in academic training. This positive affective energy enables individuals to maintain high research self-efficacy even when facing research bottlenecks, and demonstrate relentless academic resilience. Such students more likely to persist toward doctoral study, as shown below:
I have a passion for research and a desire to pursue it. I enjoy spending time in the library, quietly reviewing papers and crunching data. I can study for over ten hours a day without feeling tired. When I hit a roadblock, it sparks my competitive spirit. I gain inspiration through extensive literature review, and successfully solving problems brings me immense satisfaction—I never tire of it. I love immersing myself in research. Call it escapism or self-preservation, but it’s essentially giving my soul a place to rest. (I3)
5.2.2 Supervisor: an important supportive role
Ineffective supervision may erode students’ academic motivation, ultimately leading them to abandon doctoral aspirations. Dissertation publication is one of the important assessment indicators for doctoral applications, and this academic activity is usually done under the guidance of supervisors. Interviewees said that they originally had a strong desire to publish their dissertations. However, “after being tortured by their supervisors’ endless requests for revisions and having their dissertations overturned for countless times” (I2), their initiative waned, academic passion diminished, self-efficacy declined, and they even developed learned helplessness, eventually giving up pursuing a PhD. Despite acknowledging their supervisors’ scholarly competence, they criticized their authoritarian, domineering, and undemocratic demeanor, which reinforced a hierarchical power dynamic (I2, I22). Within such “inherently unequal relationships, supervisors often failed to provide meaningful academic support” (I15). Moreover, supervisors also play the role of a advisors in master’s students’ the choice to pursue a PhD, thus influencing their decision-making. One interviewee stated:
One interviewee stated: “Initially, I hoped to select a doctoral advisor to gain access to more resources for pursuing a PhD. However, things didn’t go as planned, and I ended up working under a non-PhD-holding mentor. This put me at a disadvantage in terms of resources from the very start. During subsequent research training, my advisor’s guidance style became the primary reason my academic enthusiasm waned. Our biweekly thesis discussions invariably ended in rejection, with everything from my topic selection to my abstract being criticized as flawed in logic or lacking critical insight. Compounded by my advisor labeling me as ‘capable but lacking ambition’, this prolonged environment of suppression fostered deep self-doubt”. (I2)
5.2.3 Family: limited resource backing
As an ascribed factor in educational attainment, family capital significantly influences the decision to pursue a doctorate. Specifically, the cultural capital and economic capital held by the family played a key role in this action.
The choice to pursue a doctorate is influenced by both family cultural capital and intergenerational expectations. For first-generation students from modest backgrounds, doctoral education is frequently perceived as a means to “gain prestige and honor for the family” (I1, I11). Consequently, some parents always have the educational expectation for their children to “stand out”. The children, in turn, internalize this educational expectation into their own learning motivation and choose to pursue further education. However, the lack of family cultural capital also means that they cannot provide their children with cultural resources or substantive academic guidance, and are even confined by some traditional thinking. For example, some participants mentioned the pressure of gender and seniority order: Female PhD graduates may face marital pressure, as being older makes it difficult for them to find suitable partners.
Family economic capital affect HSSAMS’ choices of pursuing a doctorate both directly and indirectly. First, some students will give up pursuing a PhD because their families are unable provide financial support. Whether during the PhD study period or when they are in a state of “having nothing” after graduating with a PhD, their families can only offer spiritual support (I3, I6, I15). Second, the economic status of the family interferes with HSSAMS’ self-learning expectations and psychological states (Coleman, 1966). When the family’s economic capital is scarce, parents will provide for their children’s education by “smashing the pot and selling iron.” However, the children often feel guilty and have concerns about not wanting to rely on their parents all the time, or worry that they still will not be able to give back to their families after graduating from the doctorate (I6, I19). Therefore, after assessing their circumstances, they voluntarily gave up the idea of pursuing a doctorate. Thus, familial economic status acts as a pivotal safety net—or its absence, a deterrent—in PhD decision-making.
My family is an ordinary rural household, and the support my parents can offer is extremely limited. In a big city, it’s practically a drop in the bucket. Had I been born into even a modestly well-off family—one where my parents could provide a home and a car, freeing me from financial worries—I would have pursued a PhD regardless of its uncertain job prospects. With such security, I could focus solely on my studies. But the reality is this: when I consider that by the time I finish my PhD, I’ll be nearing thirty—right in the midst of life’s major milestones like marriage, buying a home, and purchasing a car—it’s deeply distressing. (I15)
To summarize, HSSAMS engage in research training driven by their motivation to pursue doctoral studies, during which their affective experiences exert a dual effect on their ultimate decision. Supervisors play a mediating role in this process, while familial cultural and economic capital significantly shape access to doctoral education. Under the interplay of these resources, students continually reassess and reevaluate their initial aspirations, leading to a dynamic reconsideration of their doctoral pursuit.
5.3 Survival rationality and economic rationality: finally giving up pursuing a PhD
5.3.1 Institutions requirements: the discipline of academic organizations
The dual institutional frameworks of paper publication and doctoral admissions procedures create systemic barriers that deter HSSAMS from pursuing a PhD. On the one hand, originally designed as a pedagogical tool, the paper publication system has become increasingly dominated by performance metrics and quantitative evaluation, fostering a pervasive publication-dominant culture in Chinese academia. However, successful publication depends not merely on individual capability but on external factors including effective supervisory guidance, journal requirements, and editorial preferences. Due to this, the ability to withstand the scientific research pressure and psychological frustration in the doctoral stage and academic career has become an important factor for HSSAMS to evaluate their choice of pursuing a PhD. “Failure to publish a journal paper,” “doctoral dissertation delays” and “cases of doctoral student depression and attrition” are just a few examples. Many tend to become intimidated and are dissuaded by academic pressure and graduation anxiety.
Doctoral study is a KPI or a low-rewarding job that focuses on paper production. I have to go through a rather long period of dimness during my PhD program, when I had little output and was full of confusion. Of course, I also believed that such difficulties are not caused by the learning process itself, but by external institutional requirements. (I20)
On the other hand, the PhD application-assessment system makes it impossible for some students to even get the admission ticket to apply for a doctorate. First, in the context of the reformed doctoral admissions system based on application-assessment, publishing research outputs has become one of the essential requirements for PhD applicants (Horta and Li, 2022). Under this requirement, students who have not achieved scientific research results during their master’s degree will be screened out in the doctoral application. Consequently, the bundling of the paper publication system with the doctoral admission requirements has become a realistic dilemma for HSSAMS to give up pursuing a PhD. Second, the academic ecological environment that values human relationships constitutes a cultural disincentive for HSSAMS to pursue a PhD. In the current doctoral application-assessment system, doctoral supervisors are endowed with significant power in the enrollment of students. When coupled with China’s relational culture, social interactions mediated by personal connections and interpersonal bonds can potentially undermine the procedural equity of doctoral applications. Based on the above, those students who lacked academic networks related to the PhD can only give up pursuing a PhD.
Pursuing a doctoral degree is a very difficult thing, and I am well aware that my chances are extremely slim. First of all, our major itself does not have a doctoral program, and there are no doctoral students in the college, which means we have no access to any resources related to doctoral studies at all. Our major is a marginal one in the entire college and also on the fringes of the academic field, making it inherently difficult to publish papers. Both applying for a doctoral program and graduating with a doctoral degree require two core journal papers. What’s more crucial is that my master's supervisor is not a doctoral supervisor and can provide very limited resources, which makes it extremely difficult to apply for a doctoral program in other colleges (I16).
5.3.2 Employment: compromising with reality
The traditional pathway of accumulating cultural capital through prolonged educational investment has become increasingly untenable. The returns on education are diminishing, and the appreciation of degrees cannot keep pace with their depreciation (I2, I3, I5). As the degree dividend gradually wanes, some find their academic aspirations thwarted by intense competition for faculty positions, institutional prestige gaps, or job mismatch, while others abandon the traditional high-education trajectory altogether due to disillusionment with academia. The era when a PhD degree guaranteed a comfortable and stable academic post has long passed (I8, I10). This feedback creates a strong sense of risk for HSSAMS who have not yet entered the academic labor market.
In addition to increased competition for jobs and devaluation of academic qualification, this phenomenon is compounded by discipline-specific factors. Globally, humanities and social sciences (HSS) face dual crises: the instrumentalization of academic evaluation systems and neoliberal devaluation of disciplinary worth (Doidge et al., 2020). In China, the “HSS PhD crisis” has been further amplified. Compared to STEM fields which are more closely connected with the market and enterprises, HSS disciplines are perceived as lacking hard skills or measurable thresholds due to their broad epistemological boundaries. Consequently, as the academic job market saturates, HSS PhDs encounter greater challenges transitioning to non-academic sectors, even facing downward mobility.
At first, I thought that after getting a doctoral degree, I could effortlessly land a good job at a university. But later, I learned that the current faculty positions generally follow the “up or out” system. If one wants to lie flat at a school in a second or third-tier city, a doctoral degree is indeed sufficient. However, if one aims to develop at a high-level university, the pressure is enormous. Meanwhile, considering that after graduation, I might be 30 years old but possibly penniless, while my master’s classmates have already established themselves in the workplace or even become managers, with economic gains far exceeding those of doctoral students. More importantly, I discovered that most positions available to PhDs in HSS still compete with master’s graduates in the same fields. The gap between investment and return is simply too vast. As someone driven by career goals, pursuing a PhD no longer seems like the optimal choice (I8).
In summary, we find that the decision to pursue a doctorate involves continuous balancing and negotiation within a complex, multidimensional network encompassing the individual and society, ideals and reality, institutional frameworks and human relationships. This process reveals an overall tendency to abandon doctoral aspirations, driven by survival rationality and economic rationality.
6 Conclusion and discussion
Based on the analytical framework of rational choice theory and interview data, this study finds that the decision-making process of HSSAMS who have given up doctoral pursuit exhibits a three-stage dynamic pattern (see Figure 2). According to the theoretical framework, an actor’s choice is the product of the interplay among interest preferences, resources, and social norms within a specific cultural context. The three-stage model precisely reveals the dynamic process where these four core concepts sequentially emerge and dominate the logical progression within the decision-making timeline.
Figure 2. The mechanism model diagram of shifts in PhD pursuit intentions.
First, the stage of forming motivation for pursuing a doctorate based on social rationality. The decision to pursue a doctorate exhibits a unique counterintuitive characteristic: social rationality, as the highest level of rationality (Ding and Wang, 2015), conversely acts as the initial driving force. This social rationality encompasses two dimensions: first, instrumental goals stemming from external social expectations, primarily manifested as securing a faculty position in higher education; second, an intrinsic pursuit of the social identity of scholar, primarily manifested as personal academic pursuits. At this stage, the actor’s “interests” are not purely economic calculations but are profoundly shaped by China’s Confucian cultural background of valuing education and revering scholarship, manifesting as a pursuit of academic value and social prestige. Second, the resource allocation stage operationalizes and elaborates the concept of “resources possessed by actors” within the theoretical framework. When actors act upon preferences driven by social rationality, they inevitably face constraints imposed by their own resources. As Coleman (1999) defined, resources encompass multiple dimensions including emotion (academic passion), capabilities (supervisor support), and wealth (family capital). Our interview narratives clearly illustrate actors’ ongoing negotiations and trade-offs between ideals (interest preferences) and reality (resource constraints). This process embodies “bounded rationality,” focusing on action feasibility. It clearly demonstrates the micro-level dynamics of how actors continuously experiment, adjust, and struggle within given preferences and resource conditions. Finally, the trade-off stage, based on survival and economic rationality, is primarily driven by the social norms and institutions factor from the theoretical framework. When facing the critical juncture of employment, actors not only consider their own resource constraints but are also subjected to structural pressures from the macro-level, such as the application-assessment system, paper publication system, and the labor market. At this point, individuals’ interest preferences undergo a transformation: shifting from the idealistic realm of social value rationality to an ultimate calculation prioritizing survival security and economic returns (survival rationality and economic rationality).
Our interview data reveals a high degree of consistency: nearly all respondents cited employment prospects as the primary factor when explaining their final decision-making process, evaluating the cost–benefit ratio of pursuing a doctoral degree. When the game result is not ideal, individual behavior will eventually be dominated by the logic of survival and economy. It shows that employment becomes a common key factor for HSSAMS to give up their doctoral pursuits. This finding is supported by Renzulli and Barr (2017) and Dos Santos (2020). It also further corroborates that academic profession is losing its glamour in several ways and are no longer as attractive as it once was (Cidlinska et al., 2023). However, Diogo et al.’s (2022) study came to a different conclusion with its finding that students in HSS fields still have idealized expectations of doctoral degrees and tend to ignore the precariousness of their employment. This discrepancy may stem from post-pandemic Chinese students’ heightened risk perception, which has amplified the deterrent effect of warnings about the “employment crisis for HSS PhDs.”
Employment prospects have emerged as the primary indicator for evaluating the worth of a doctoral degree (Bryan and Guccione, 2018). This rationale reflects the underlying issue of conversion validity—the extent to which cultural capital (embodied in academic credentials) can be transformed into economic and social capital. With the expansion of higher education, social mobility mechanisms have increasingly gravitated toward graduate education (Xie and Shen, 2022), this shift prompts Chinese master’s students, who are deeply influenced by Confucian ideals and imperial examination culture, to view doctoral study as a means of changing their destiny through education. However, this decision-making process is often based on initial information asymmetry, leading HSSAMS to develop an idealized perception of academic life (Guerin, 2020). Many students initially regard doctoral education as a dual-benefit choice that fulfills academic pursuits and career advancement. Yet, as their awareness deepens and they accumulate real-world academic experience, they come to recognize the substantial challenges of doctoral study. In particular, faced with degree devaluation and an increasingly saturated academic job market, the role of education in facilitating upward social mobility has significantly weakened (Xu et al., 2024). When HSSAMS assess that the time, financial, and psychological investments required for a PhD may not yield proportional returns in economic or social capital, they become more inclined to give up doctoral pursuit.
At a deeper level, this decision-making behavior is not only shaped by macro-level environmental factors but is fundamentally rooted in individuals’ social class attributes (Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997). Although the study did not screen participants based on family socioeconomic status, the family backgrounds of respondents exhibited distinct class concentration. Most of them originate from rural or working-class households, a demographic whose educational decisions typically demonstrate characteristic conservatism. First, under resource constraints, risk-averse individuals guided by stability-seeking values tend to adopt a cost–benefit calculus, often subordinating personal interests to pragmatic considerations favoring more secure pathways. Second, the perspectives of resource-disadvantaged groups remain markedly traditional. In the tradition of Chinese society, scholars were the first and highest of the four major classes (Feng, 2012). Influenced by this, many narrow their definition of employment success to obtaining a teaching position in higher education, and regard university professors as the most socially prestigious career choice. As long as a PhD holder is not employed in academia, they are considered underemployed, ignoring the employment of PhD graduates outside of academia (Cuthbert and Molla, 2015). This dynamic trajectory of change in doctoral pursuit decisions is thus an external representation of long-simmering class inertia (Bourdieu, 1984). It reflects the dual constraints faced by the average family in terms of objective resource limitations and subjective cognitive frameworks on individual educational choices. This pattern reinforces effectively maintained inequality theory (Boliver, 2011), particularly evident in the disproportionate influence of family background on access to elite higher education and doctoral opportunities (Bachsleitner et al., 2018). However, some scholars have also pointed out that the widening of access to higher education can provide upward mobility opportunities for some disadvantaged groups (Yang et al., 2017). This is instructive in revisiting the increasingly complex relationship between doctoral degrees, academic careers, and family background.
7 Implications and limitations
From a theoretical perspective, this study achieves a localized expansion and deepening of rational choice theory through an in-depth analysis of the shift in the choice of studying for a doctorate within the Chinese context. First, it verifies the applicability of rational choice theory to analyze master’s students’ decisions to pursue a doctorate, revealing that their selection process is fundamentally one of bounded rationality. Traditional rational choice theory assumes decision-makers possess complete information. However, this study finds that master’s students face significant information asymmetry (such as vague perceptions of supervisor styles and academic job market prospects) and dynamically changing personal preference. Their decisions are not one-time optimal calculations but a dynamic process of continuous adjustment under information constraints. Second, this study breaks through the limitations of pure instrumental rationality in classical theory. Many interviewees’ decisions cannot be explained solely by cost–benefit models; individual choices emerge from the interplay of instrumental, value-based, and emotional rationality. Finally, this study advances rational choice theory from a cross-cultural perspective. Findings reveal that the “family-centeredness” rooted in Confucian culture is deeply embedded in students’ decision-making logic, with parental expectations and the family’s economic and cultural capital serving as significant influencing variables. This transcends the traditional view of the family as an external constraint. By innovatively operationalizing Weber’s (1951) concept of “Confucian rationality,” the study provides a significant contextualized revision to a rational choice theory that originates from the tradition of Western individualism.
At the practical level, this study focuses on a significant yet overlooked group in existing literature (those who initially intended to pursue a doctorate but ultimately gave up), revealing the dynamic mechanism of this shift from a diachronic perspective. This finding provides valuable insights for optimizing doctoral education policies and training systems, as well as for understanding and supporting students’ academic decision-making processes. The study recommends that doctoral admissions and training should address structural inequities in resource allocation, establish more transparent and diverse information channels, and foster a more supportive academic development environment. For students and their families facing these decisions, this research reveals the complexity of choice, encouraging more comprehensive self-assessment and environmental evaluation to promote rational and sustainable academic decisions.
This study also has certain limitations. First, the small sample size and lack of quantitative methods constrain the generalizability of the results to the broader master’s student population. Second, beyond the factors identified in this study, shifts in doctoral pursuit decisions may also be influenced by unforeseen social, familial, or academic contingencies, which could lead to discrepancies with the present findings. Finally, data primarily rely on retrospective self-reports from a single observational period, risking post-hoc rationalization. Therefore, future research should conduct longitudinal tracking, expand sample sizes, and enhance internal heterogeneity among subjects to refine or deeply explore the influencing mechanism of master’s students’ change in their willingness to give up pursuing a doctorate.
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
The studies involving humans were approved by Central Minzu University Office of Scientific Research. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
Author contributions
YF: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Data curation. ZZ: Resources, Validation, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Keywords: choices for pursuing a doctoral degree, rational choice theory, qualitative research, humanities and social sciences academic master’s students, dynamic process
Citation: Feng Y and Zhong Z (2025) Surrendering to reality: a qualitative study on the shift in PhD pursuit intentions among Chinese humanities and social sciences master’s students. Front. Educ. 10:1671710. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1671710
Edited by:
Francisco Manuel Morales Rodríguez, University of Granada, SpainReviewed by:
Refah Ahmed Aldawsari, University of Hafr Al Batin, Saudi ArabiaCalvin Cheng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
Copyright © 2025 Feng and Zhong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Zhiyong Zhong, emhvbmd6aGl5b25nQG11Yy5lZHUuY24=