International PhD students have distinct needs compared to international undergraduate and graduate students, due to having significantly different study, work and life experiences. International students make up almost half of all doctoral students in Aotearoa, hence their wellbeing and therefore PhD productivity has a significant impact on institute-wide success.

For simplicity, we use the term ‘PhD student’ to mean people at any stage of pursuing a PhD – including doctoral candidates. However, for some people the word ‘student’ is considered a misnomer since it does not reflect a PhD student’s maturity and their need to balance significant non-academic responsibilities – such as employment and childcare – alongside academic demands.

“Postgraduate study cannot be isolated from other aspects of life, and a holistic concern for doctoral candidates as people, and not just students, requires a range of personal, family, non-academic, faith, health and social aspects to be recognised.” – Hopwood et al. (2011)

This topic will help PhD supervisors and other student support staff at tertiary education institutes understand and support the unique needs of international PhD students as different from the needs of international (under)graduates and domestic postgraduates. 

As the first step, we recommend first reading the toolkit topic Managing Expectations for help with identifying and resolving your doctorate students’ misaligned expectations before they arrive, which will help reduce the risk of PhD disruptions and delays.

International PhD students often find it more difficult than other students to find a healthy balance between academia and other aspects of their life. For example, many move to the country with their partner/spouse and children, whereas other international students are less likely to have dependents. They are ultimately responsible for their dependents’ wellbeing alongside their own while navigating an unfamiliar, expensive country.

Unlike domestic postgraduate students, most international PhD students do not have family or friends nearby that they can count on for support through difficult times. Since they are on temporary visas, they do not enjoy full rights as citizens when unable to find sufficient accommodation, income, or childcare even though they are classed as domestic students. International PhD students also do not have the option of switching to a part-time PhD if they need more time to earn the funds to continue pursuing their doctorate, which domestic students can do at any time.  

The temporary visa status of international PhD students means that unsupported students are more likely to experience financial insecurity, housing instability and/or family crises. Consequently, in some circumstances these students can encounter higher stress loads than domestic ones with respect to managing family wellbeing alongside their doctorate. 

“I talked to a supervisor from a different field once. He told me that he had a student who was having issues. She couldn’t cope with the pressures. She had to do a lot of work in the lab, and she had a husband and a son. The husband didn’t understand the PhD pressures on her, and the situation wasn’t positive at home. The supervisor then said to me, ‘I hope we can get a bit more work out of her before she quits’.”
– Mary, university lecturer

Hence, to avoid losing the much-needed diversity of thinkers and researchers in academia, it is critical to support international PhD students in an equitable way. Equitable means to readily provide tailored support to those who need more support, as opposed to simply treating all students the same (as an act of ‘equality’). This includes directing international PhD students to the right help early – ideally before they need it.

Well-supported international PhD students are more likely to have a successful and rewarding experience pursuing their doctorate in Aotearoa, and then recommend it to others. Additionally, those who get help quickly will likely contribute better quality work in the long run, leading to more impactful and noticeable research outputs for your institution and Aotearoa on the global stage.

‍Covered in this section:

2.1. Financial security

• Expectations and budgeting
• Finding work

2.2. Stable accommodation

• Finding suitable housing
• Tips for supporting students

2.3 Family wellbeing

• Cultural perspectives on family
• Family roles
• Family tensions

2.1 Financial security.

The average value of PhD scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand is still below the minimum wage and has plateaued from 2011 to 2019 despite a significant increase in the cost of living (Soar et al, 2022). 

It also takes the average PhD student four years to complete their doctorates – including international PhD students – but nearly all PhD scholarships are limited to a three-year period. This means that the fourth year is unsupported by any scholarship and must be self-funded. Yet the student, who has already invested everything into their PhD, must keep going to finish their doctorate.

"The reasons for this can be complex but obviously not supporting people [for four years] is not keeping degrees shorter, it's just keeping PhD students even poorer. How can a student with children, or from a family that needs their help, justify that [additional time and money]?"
– Dr Lucy Stewart, co-author of Soar et al. (2022), as quoted in The New Zealand Herald

With the cost of living now at an all-time high, having a modestly funded scholarship means that most PhD students need to find a good job outside of the 40+ hours per week they are expected to invest in their doctorate. Many international PhD students also arrive with misaligned expectations around the cost of living, putting themselves at a higher risk of going into financial hardship due to poorly informed planning and budgeting.

“When they tell you about the high living costs in New Zealand, you think ‘how bad can it be?’ $21 per hour as a minimum wage – that’s a fortune in my home country. The message doesn’t always get through, even when prospective students are told.”
– Nasima, Bangladesh

International PhD students may find it more challenging to appeal to prospective employers, due to being unfamiliar with New Zealand’s interview etiquette, for example. Hence, those that get good guidance in the job application process are more likely to secure suitable employment at a reasonable wage to support continuing and completing their PhD.

Read our toolkit topic Understand New Zealand Student Services to learn more about which support service to direct students to, depending on their situation. Similarly, our toolkit topic Support International Student Employability will help you identify which soft skills a student needs to strengthen to become more employable and therefore get work quickly. 

For helping students experiencing a crisis resulting from financial issues, we recommend you read our toolkit topic Supporting the mental health of International PhD students as well as the tips below.

Support tips

2.2 Stable accommodation.

Securing good accommodation at a fair rate with a long-term lease is pivotal in the safety, security and health of international PhD students and their families. Research surveys carried out by Cotterall (2011, p. 132-3) and ENZ (2021) reveal that finding suitable accommodation was of great concern for many international students. A significant proportion of respondents to both surveys had trouble finding accommodation that was affordable, healthy and/or long-term.

This is no exception for international PhD students. For example, even though it is illegal for landlords to reject applications based on family status or nationality/ethnicity, landlords can still – and do – simply accept “preferred” tenants’ applications over international PhD students’ ones. 

“I had my wife and small son with me. I got no help for accommodation whatsoever. At accommodation services, they basically said to me: Get lost.
– Tomás, Chile”

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Trying to find suitable accommodation months into starting (or even midway through) a PhD can delay academic progress. Hence, informing prospective PhD students about housing in Aotearoa – and its known issues – before they arrive can help avoid or speed up resolving issues with accommodation. 

It is worth reading our toolkit topic Supporting the mental health of International PhD students as well as the tips below to inform yourself around improving support for students encountering a crisis resulting from accommodation issues.

‍Support tips

2.3 Family wellbeing. 

Research by Hyun et al., (2007) suggests that international graduate students (which includes both masters and doctoral students) are more likely to be married and/or have children than domestic students the same age. This indicates that international students in general have a greater need to have family pressures recognised, accommodated, and supported appropriately. 

The onus is on individual staff, however, to foster an authentically family-friendly study and research environment, as universities do not consider the needs of PhD students – especially international – who have family. Doyle et al. (2015) indicate that institutions and government agencies need to collect more data on the experiences of family members so that they can develop more supportive policies to facilitate their sojourns. 

Word of mouth is powerful and the influence of family members’ endorsement – or dissuasion – of PhD experiences on potential future enrolees should not be underestimated. As Doyle et al. (2015) point out, a positive or negative PhD experience does not rest solely with how the doctoral student is treated: “The invisible family members will return home with their own connections to, and learnings about their host and home cultures and society”. 

‍Accommodating different cultural perspectives in relation to family

Incompatibilities in cultural values and priorities are common sources of internal turmoil for doctorate students trying to please both their family and PhD supervisor. Our toolkit topic Managing Expectations contains tips for understanding international students’ cultural context in general. 

However, many international PhD students with families have specific cultural aspects – such as unique worldviews – that need to be considered by their supervisors and others: 

• Some cultures, such as Samoa, consider family as integral to and inseparable from every aspect of their life. Western culture tends to favour a way of thinking that considers each aspect of life (such as work, family, leisure and spirituality) as separate rather than together. This can cause misunderstandings or tensions among PhD students from cultures that do not think this way. For example, the phrase ‘work-life balance’ is meaningless to some people who have never experienced ‘work’ as separate from ‘life’ (including family life).
• Other cultures always prioritise family over other aspects of life, including work. Western culture is individualistic (a focus on individual rather than group success), so for most Kiwis it is normal to assign equal importance to work and family – with family sometimes taking a temporary back seat during times of high workload, and vice versa. However, for some international students from more collectivist cultures such as Indonesia, it will feel strange and/or wrong to not prioritise their family at all times.

You can inform yourself about how family is valued in different cultures using the Cultural Atlas website. For example, comparing the family values for the United States with those for Turkey reveals very different worldviews, expectations and priorities.

‍Understanding how family roles can affect international PhD students

PhD candidates who identify as women have their own unique set of conflicts relating to cultural values and expectations. For example, many women from more patriarchal cultures feel obligated to fulfil the traditional role of being the main ‘family carer’ as a mother and wife in addition to trying to break down barriers through pursuing a PhD. Some are also the first in their family to be accepted for a postgraduate qualification so have no guidance or support from home in this aspect. 

The Hofstede Insights Country Comparison tool can give you a quick idea of how patriarchal a student’s home culture may be, and therefore which might need more support than others in relation to this.

In addition, single parent international postgraduates have the largest challenge in managing family alongside financial and PhD obligations:

“One of my PhD students is from the Middle East and is a single mother. Having two children in schools takes up a lot of time … While young, single PhD students can work late into the evening, read widely, write papers that build up their CVs, and take part in the communal life of the research community, she cannot. Why should the sacrifice be greater for international students with family commitments? Why should our discourses and bodies of knowledge be mainly the preserve of young, single individuals who have few commitments?” – Basden, 2018

‍Considering family tensions

For many doctorate students with families, pursuing a PhD can also contribute to tensions and relationship breakdowns at home that, ironically, can affect PhD productivity. The story below is told by Karen, a domestic PhD student who describes the difficulties she went through during her doctorate. Consider how family tensions are amplified for international students whose partner and children don’t have other loved ones nearby to maintain emotional connections with while they are busy working or studying.

“Spouses and significant others get tired of being second or third priority behind your degree and whatever paid work and grant writing you do to put food on the table. You will always have your work with you. If there are any seams or rough edges in your relationships, they will fray and often tear away during a doctoral program. Re-entering your relationships after is no picnic either. Your partner or spouse will have found other interests to fill their time while you're busy in your programme. Your kids will have gotten used to "not bothering" you when you're home. It will take time and energy to find new ways to connect with them. Some people never manage to navigate these challenges. Everyone has changed.”

We recommend that you read our toolkit topic Supporting the Mental Health of International PhD Students as well as the tips below for more information and resources on improving support for students who are experiencing family-related stress.

Support tips

This topic has explained why it is so important that international PhD students be well prepared and well supported in other areas of life outside of their academic pursuits. PhD supervisors and other student support staff at tertiary education institutes should now recognise some areas where international PhD students need additional tailored guidance and understand how to support their unique needs appropriately and effectively.

Basden, A. (2018) We need family-friendly PhDs for international students. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/we-need-family-friendly-phds-international-students 

Doyle, S., Loveridge, J. & Faamanatu-Eteuati, N. (2016). Counting Family: Making the Family of International Students Visible in Higher Education Policy and Practice. High Educ Policy. 29, 184–198. https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2015.20

Education New Zealand. (2021). International Student Experience Survey 2021. Retrieved from https://intellilab.enz.govt.nz/document/682-international-student-experience-survey-2021-final-report 

Hopwood, N., Alexander, P., Harris-Huemmert, S., McAlpine, L., & Wagstaff, S. (2011). The hidden realities of life as a doctoral student. In V Mallan & A Lee (Eds) International perspectives on doctoral education: a resource for supervisors and students. Serdang, Malaysia: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.

Hyun J, Quinn B, Madon T, Lustig S. (2007). Mental health need, awareness, and use of counseling services among international graduate students. J Am Coll Health. 56:2, 109-18. https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.56.2.109-118

Morton, J. (2021). Should NZ's PhD researchers be working at below minimum wage? New Zealand Herald. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/should-nzs-phd-researchers-be-working-at-below-minimum-wage/KQC7JJ7TLK3SFFRHOWHZYM3TKY/

Soar, M., Stewart, L., Nissen, S., Naepi, S., & McAllister, T. (2022). Sweat equity: Student scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 57, 505-523. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40841-022-00244-5