I am perplexed by the so-called postgraduate studies and their reward systems. I completed my PhD (in my last 20s) in a second world country about few years ago and continued working as a faculty at a neighbouring university in the same country. I pulled out (or technically resigned) as a senior lecturer, when I couldn't endure being bullied any longer by my senior academics, who had only earned their "DTech" in their 50+ yrs of age.

I am now working with a pretty new institution in a first world country and will be starting a Postdoc soon. Taking a look at the salary for the Postdoc, it's like I am back to the same rat race as a PhD student years ago. And I now have a family! The new job, though a permanent position, isn't a full-time; so, all employees are advised to look elsewhere. All effort to get into the industry proved abortive; and I saw that a number of my folks in the industry are earning 10-20k more than me (i.e. senior dev. vs senior faculty). Yet they don't have those fanciful postgraduate degrees.

The postdoc opportunity, as for now, seems to be an avenue to get into a top-tier or well-established institution in the first world country though. The long and the short of it is that academics don't get rewarded like their peers in the industry. In addition, postdoc offers are just another way of being a student - call it a professional student. But I will console myself be calling it a consultant. The postdoc offer isn't that bad compared to others that I had. It includes travelling to another first world country for a year or more to complete the other part of my research.