I wonder how much of this generalises outside the US. I live in Belgium and this is the first time I hear about postdoc application shortage. Here the postdocs are not badly paid, probably less than one can get in the private sector, but definitely not to the point of not affording childcare !
Also :
“If we put in a research grant with a postdoc salary that they pay at a national lab, the program office is going to look at it and say, ‘Look, I can’t give you this much money. It’s so out of line with what everyone else is asking for,’”
So close to discover capitalism ! How is the postdoc salary not fixed by the grant rules?
I have not heard about shortages in Europe, but the labor conditions are also quite bad here. There is an enormous overproduction of post-docs compared to the number of real positions available next. Here in Germany that is even more excessive because postdocs (and PhD students) mostly work on project funding. The relatively rich federal government is only allowed to pay for project, while the poor states do the funding for the universities and their permanent positions.
Indeed the labor conditions of young researchers are not great here either, but it is because of the poor perspectives for the future rather than because they are not paid enough.
People need to spend a lot of time writing applications, and to work many extra hours to be able to do some research.In this context, I would not look for reasons for people to stop applying : it is only natural that at some point there will be less applications due to there being too many of them to start with.
After all, what they call a shortage is receiving 28 applications for one position.
For some specialties, at least for STEAM, there’re some parallels to the US med student->doctor system, high barrier to entry, then postdocing while waiting to become full fledged staff position to open up somewhere you deal with low pay, but doing some time as a post doc you’re expected to gain the knowledge to become a true academic/scientist or whatnot, its similar to residency in a lot of ways.
Most postdocs I knew ended up leaving the field to do something else, mostly baking or other catering-restaurant type businesses.
