Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Niu Honglin, joined by Steve and Yishan.
In most professions, experience is an asset.
Yet in academia, ironically a field built on lifelong learning, age is somehow becoming a barrier in certain cases.
The rapid expansion of doctoral programs, stable hiring quotas and intense competition have turned age limits into a shorthand for efficiency in recruitment.
This trend raises large questions about how universities define talent, how research cultures value creativity and how institutions plan for long-term scholarly vitality.
Today, we'll take a closer look at the 35 and under rule in the PhD job market.
And in the age of push notifications, the gap between message sent and message replied has become a battleground for of expectation.
We crave immediacy, yet we resent the constant demand for quick responses.
What's your take on the messages left on Just Read?
Let's talk about it.
But before that, Every year more people commit to pursuing doctoral research, hoping to enter the world of teaching and scholarship.
But the structure around them is changing faster than they are.
Age restrictions that once seemed like administrative details have become decisive hurdles, reshaping who gets to belong in academia and who gets pushed out, before they even begin.
When PhDs are applying for faculty positions at universities, how common do they encounter this no more than 35-year-old rule, especially here in China?
Wow, that's a really big changing, because i remember just not very long ago we just talked about the national civil service examination which reached kind of elevated its age bar from 35 to 38.
But here for many phd graduates that age limit of 35 might still be a hurdle for them to pursue an ideal job in academia, like you mentioned, Hong Lin.
So, according to recruitment announcement from some universities in 2024 and 2025, the age requirement for young talent applying for academic positions is mostly under 35 years old.
And some universities have even lowered the age limit to 32, with exceptions made for particularly outstanding candidates, allowing the age limits for these people to be extended to 40 years old.
So working in academia as a researcher or postdoc, or becoming a university staff, That's commonly seen as an attractive, if not ideal, career path for PhD grads.
But the age limit is kind of making this goal harder to achieve nowadays for many of them.
For example, there is one school that released its 2025 recruitment notice.
That's the Northeastern University School of Foreign Languages and Cultures.
It says that the teaching position required for their school has an age limit of generally not over 35 years old for PhD holders.
And then that's no more than 40 years old for associate professors and no more than 50 years old for professors.
So it's a tiered system.
Yeah.
So that particular university.
They planned to hire 10 professional and technical staff in 2025, but for master's degree holders the age limit was under 28 years old.
And again, yeah, you mentioned it for PhD holders, age limit of under 32.
Some universities, they're trying to loosen the limit a little bit, but that's not entirely clear.
They don't want to miss out on talent due to that very rigid age limit.
Some are considering more factors in their recruitment processes, such as setting different age limits for different disciplines.
And then, on top of that, a lot of universities.
They've stated that they may relax the age limit for what they call quote exceptionally outstanding candidates.
But it's not entirely clear how they're going to define an exceptionally outstanding candidate.
So that is open for debate, I suppose.
And what will happen there, we don't know yet.
And the reason that we're discussing this is because, at the first look, I was almost curious to know whether or not it's against any types of rules or laws or regulations.
And after checking I realized that here in China there are definitely laws anti any kind of discriminative Age discrimination.
Any type of discrimination policies.
But...
Age is not clearly cited in any kind of law.
In different types of law.
We have the ones that states that you cannot have sex discrimination, gender ones, because that only certain very few job that is definitely not suitable for ladies I can think of.
Someone who is helping clean the bathroom in the men's bathroom, perhaps.
Anyways, those ones you can set a clear requirement for different gender, but other ones you can't.
And also it's.
You cannot have a specific requirement for any type of ethnic group and also definitely cannot discriminate those who are, for example, pregnant or are raising a kid, and cannot have the kind of requirements asking to have people who are without any disabilities, except that this position requires a certain ability that the other person does not have.
Age is not in any type of law.
It's said as a general directive, a general idea, that you cannot discriminate people because of their age.
But definitely, we can somehow understand that the age factor can be important in certain occasions.
One, the place is hiring for people.
For example, if a company is merely thinking about hiring the silver age group because they need people who are more experienced for the certain position, they're not having any discrimination against younger generation and vice versa.
It's the idea.
So it's only a principle, general principle instead of a very specific law.
It's also, if you look at it from a different angle.
It's creating more opportunities for young PhD holders.
Ironically, the market got flooded.
If you will, Back in 2015, there were 74000 PhD students enrolled in the country.
That number rose to 116,000 and 171,000 in 2020 and 2024 respectively.
That's up by over 50% and 130%.
That's a lot more PhD students and then eventual PhD holders, and when those people graduated, four to six years later, there have been more and more fresh phd holders in the job market in recent years.
So you've got it's a supply and demand issue, isn't it?
You've got more and more people getting their phd, but fewer positions available for those um, for those phd holders, and one of the benefits of of having the age limit um is that the you're saving those jobs for the people who have just come out and finished their degrees.
If those positions were filled by, you know, 52 year olds or 49 year olds or what have you, then that would be taking away positions and it would worsen the problem of of younger people coming out with their PhD not being able to find positions.
As someone who's just passed the age of 35, I'm curious scientifically speaking, is there any kind of research showing what are the prime time when it comes to academic research?
I mean, because it's kind of an interesting and complicated issue.
You need people to be creative and innovative.
Also need them to work really hard, working long hours and being able to remember certain results or certain sparks when they are thinking about the issue.
So is there anything in regard to age related to academic performances?
Short answer is yes, because there is research showing that the optimal age range for researchers of natural sciences is between 25 and 45 years.
So that's a period that aligns closely with the early stages of their careers.
And that's also the prime year for research for them to research innovatively and break the old while creating the new regarding their academic production.
So yes, but not covering all majors.
Definitely.
We're not generalizing or putting labels on anything.
We know plenty of smart and brilliant scientists who are in their 80s or 90s and still giving out credits Great research results.
So that being said, another factor, very interesting one.
And for those of you who are not that familiar with the research related area, here in China we have something called a National Natural Science Foundation Youth Program.
And that program's cap is 35 years old for men and 40 years old for women.
And that one is the one that a lot of young PhDs in universities trying to get.
And it's kind of one of their goals.
And universities would also, in a certain way, speed up, be assessed by how many of these kind of foundations they have or their faculties have.
So from that point, it's quite natural to know why here is such a foundation.
It's to encourage the young scientists, give them the money they need to do their research, giving them support.
But at this specific, particular situation, it's also becoming a reason that those universities, when hiring, favor relatively younger people.
Yeah, but the problem with that is that it's really hard to finish your PhD in that amount of time.
Because if you enter university when you're 18 years old and you spend four years doing your undergrad and then two to three years for your master's, and then four to six years to get your PhD,
Well then, by the time you graduate, theoretically you're going to be somewhere between 28 and 31 years old.
And that's if you do it consistently without any breaks.
This makes it quite a challenge to I mean, that leaves you a limited window in terms of starting your career and finding the job that you want to.
But if there are academic gaps, if you take a year off to do this or that, whatever the case might be in your own personal life, you're eating into your own time window, so to speak.
Yeah, and that is why a lot of PhD students or graduates are facing this problem and they're talking about it and they're trying to find different ways to deal with this because, like Steve said, there's a lot of factor to think about.
If you are as an individual, you're pursuing the career you want to work for science for your entire life, but at the same time, you still have to face the expectation of starting a family.
In China we have this concept of once you hit the age 30, you're supposed to be thinking about independent, about building something out of your life already, or at least ending at a starting point of a successful life path.
There is that.
I'm getting there.
It's that.
And there's also the expectations from the family that you're supposed to be.
You know, finding someone.
Start a family.
So therefore, it's really reasonable to assume that you might finish a PhD when you're 33 or 35.
And even that would be considered on the younger side of things.
But just because you're under 35 and you have your PhD, that doesn't guarantee that you're going to get a job.
It just means that you qualify under that.
Yeah, exactly.
And what's happening is that you're you've spent your academic career. to acquire that phd and what's the assumption the assumption is that you know if you get a phd you're off and running to a successful life and a lot of phd holders in that age group are finding they can't even work in the academic field there's just no positions for them because it's hard to even there is a position it's really hard to retain the position after you you have it Universities nowadays, they have different evaluation standards for young faculty, but they typically cover just a whole category of things, including teaching, how you're doing your research, your social service time, and even research funding, where you're getting your funding from. the PhD grads, their evaluation results are deemed qualified or good, they can move to the next appointment period.
There are usually two evaluation period for new employed lecturers, each lasting three years.
So you survive one phase, and then there's another following and then perhaps more following afterwards.
I've had my university teachers, back in the days when I was a college student, who complain literally to us about how hard it is for them to finish their research while teaching and do research amid of all the other academic responsibilities they have to carry in order to meet the standards or the requirements asked of them to fulfill that three-year, few-year time period.
Because they're expected to publish...
Certain numbers of paper, right.
It's a tough world for PhDs these days, but it kind of is also a tough world out there for everybody.
So I think my question is if this kind of policies continue?
We already know the ups and downs of such policy for universities.
Maybe they can get younger PhDs.
But definitely they would miss out to the talent who are over that age limit.
But for young students, for those who have their hearts on academia world, do you think this kind of policies or this kind of phenomenon would affect their passion in pursuing further, pursuing a academic life or just a PhD?
I would assume it would influence that heavily.
Yes.
If you are doing this out of the passion of your life, okay.
If you're doing this out of potential job security for your future, you can't rely on that.
According to the numbers that we're talking about here, if the market gets flooded with PhD holders, every new PhD degree that comes out devalues all previous PhDs that came out right.
You know what I mean, right?
Because the more that come out, the less rare your PhD becomes.
So if more and more people are doing this and pursuing these PhD degrees and there is uncertainty about the path to the future mean, if it's me, if it's me, I'm gonna look at that and say, might be smarter for me to go a different direction.
Yeah, that's the same for many who is around 30 they're 30 years, 32.
Many are just simply uncertain whether it's worth it in the first place to pursue a PhD at their age and they consider themselves hold on quote late in the process.
And in the meantime, this is not to pour any rain on any of your parade if you still want to pursue that path.
Of course, there are all different ways for you to still get a very successful career after you graduate with your PhD degree at, or over Or below the age of 35.
Yeah, which is really sad if you think about it, isn't it?
Because that attitude that I just expressed you know for a 30-year-old or a 32-year-old to say you know, I'm really interested in pursuing a career in academia, acquiring a PhD degree which puts you in the what top 1 of the most educated people in the world.
I assume.
I don't have statistics.
But you might think oh, I'm too old, at 30 or 32, to start your PhD, pursuit of your phd.
That's sad.
So when we're making these kind of decisions, even as an individual, i think try to make sure, or try to have a full assessment of your life and find out the reason, the real reason behind the pursuing of academic career.
For those who are thinking about securing a job and starting a life, Maybe this is definitely not well, perhaps it's not the best option.
But for those who really, really have their hearts on pursuing research or academia life, they will still be in the game.
And if they have that attitude, I believe you can win that game as well.
You're listening to Roundtable coming up.
Next, in the age of stay in touch 24-7, we tend to feel overwhelmed when messages pile up, but wounded when our own go unanswered.
Let's examine this digital paradox right after the break.
Looking for passion?
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Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
It's Roundtable with myself, Steve Heatherly, and Yusheng.
Do you know that feeling when your message shows red, but half an hour later, still no response?
You're sitting there staring at your phone like, am I being digitally ghosted?
It must be something I said.
If I send over another message now, will it be too desperate?
It's like a slow burn of anxiety.
So how do we find a balance between staying connected and still having space to live our lives without falling into a spiral of digital dread?
Do you have that feeling?
Are you feeling anxious in that situation?
No.
Really?
I'm not.
Really?
Why not?
You have a very, let's say, stable... Calm.
Yes, very calm inner self.
Well, I mean, the only people I text are my buddies and my wife and my parents.
So if my parents don't answer my text immediately, don't care.
If my buddies don't answer my text immediately, don't care.
And my wife always answers my texts pretty quickly.
So don't need to worry about that.
I think this phenomenon of anxiety inducing unread or sorry read, yet not replied messages would be most commonly found in the dating world.
Yes.
And we see this phenomenon in a lot of apps where you can see for sure that your message is read.
And then you know that this person has read it but decide not to reply.
And that is one of the worst situations.
And here in China, on many of our social media apps, You don't really see the red note on it yet.
Sometimes you can see them posting something in their you know social media account in the WeChat moment.
OK, that's a little stalkerish on your behalf, though, is not you.
Because it bothers me.
So I will check whether or not this person has done something on the Internet showcasing.
They've checked their phone and they decide not to reply my message.
You're only doing that in the dating context, are you not?
If your mom doesn't reply to your message in the first three hours, you're not going on your mom's social media to see if she's posted.
Not always the case.
In my case, if my parents don't reply after a decent amount of time, I'll worry.
I'll get worried and concerned, wondering if they'll They're mad at me for some reason.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And see, it happens or it impacts individuals in very different ways.
And for some, this whole thing called left on read phenomenon is the ultimate cardinal sin of modern messaging.
It's.
It's something they do not forgive and they do not understand.
To start with, I am definitely one of those people who get anxious while knowing that my message is read, yet unreplied.
And I'm not alone.
A 2024 survey by Beijing Youth Daily found that more than half of Chinese Generation Z surveyed feel down or ignored when they see read but get no reply.
On top of that, more or nearly 24 of respondents say think it's a bit rude to simply leave people on read.
But I want to know, is it reasonable for us to think this way?
If you go deeper into human psychology, it does actually make some sense.
There's a strong emotional reaction, and it's not just being sensitive.
It's kind of our survival instinct.
Biologically speaking, when we feel ignored or excluded or pushed out of a group, our brain flips into what researchers sometimes call a pain mode.
And that's when your brain reacts almost the same way it does when you stub your toe or you cut your finger or something like that.
A real pain.
Yeah, physical pain.
And then studies have shown that when a person experiences rejection, which could come in the form of.
I see you've read my message and haven't responded yet.
Two key areas of your brain light up.
One that detects physical pain and then another linked to how the body experiences discomfort.
So remember that the next time that you're not replying to someone and you know they can see that you've read their message you're actually giving them the same response that they would get if they physically hurt themselves or emotionally hurt them.
Thank you for saying that.
I never do that.
I would always, always respond immediately, unless i'm in a meeting, i don't have my phone, i'm on the show, i cannot really reply to the message and Or the fact that I am simply too, too busy.
I will reply later and explain my situation.
But I also know it's not fair to ask everyone to do that.
So is there anything that we can, you know, persuade ourselves when we do not get the message replied instantly to you?
Well, on the one hand, avoid the almost physical pain, kind of pain in our brain.
And at the other side, I will also be a little bit more understanding towards those who are not replying our messages.
Just don't check.
If you don't check, you won't know.
But if I don't check, I don't read and I don't reply.
No, I mean, don't check if your message has been read.
And then for, I guess, more of the young people nowadays and people of all ages, We just simply don't want to reply instantly because of the very fact that we don't want that to be our full-time job.
Because many of the times it's like this whole reply culture that's so popular among all of us nowadays gives us the pressure to reply immediately.
And, in the meantime, robbing us of being able to live more presently and curiously of what you're doing at this very moment, and just try to enjoy it.
It's getting really hard for us nowadays.
And inaction.
In many ways, in the age of red receipts can be a form of action on its own, because by reading a message and consciously choosing not to reply, it's also a clear message sent.
I have something I'm working on right now and you are, for the moment, not my priority.
Ouch.
Which is okay for a lot of times.
You don't have to word it like that.
Yes.
Yeah.
Maybe do other people a favor because you can turn off your red receipts.
So if you turn that off, if everybody turns those off, this anxiety will simply disappear.
I'm curious.
Do you express that to your parents Yushan, that if you don't reply quickly?
It makes me nervous and worried.
Never.
You never tell them that?
Because I know is me the need to deal with it, not them.
They have stuff to work on, but maybe if you told them that then they might just reply faster.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
My dad used to tell me that all the time that he's anxious when I'm not replying.
Yes.
So in a perfect world we would always reply the messages when we have time and we would not care or care that much about the message read but not replied.
And before putting a close to today's show, I want to do a little bit of a service to tell you that the material
Actually, there will be a meteor shower happening this weekend.
Oh, a meteor shower.
Yes.
Hopefully, the skies will be clear.
Yes, it will happen in December the 13th, and it is widely observed.
Well, it can be widely observed, and it's definitely a very bright, colorful one.
So, if you're interested, maybe check the weather alert in your local whatever app or website that you're interested in knowing, and maybe you can have a very romantic weekend.
Is that thanks to the Paris Agreement?
You knew that information?
Yes, yes.
And that brings us to the end of today's Roundtable.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's topics.
Leave us a comment or send us an email to roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve and Yishan.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye-bye.
