[NotPhysicsPhd]

To my knowledge, in the Netherlands and Luxembourg there is a similar situation to the one you described in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

In Portugal you get a fellowship that covers tuition and a monthly stipend which was increased for the first time in 15 years (by 1.4%) last year. PhD fellows are not considered employees of the University and since the stipend is not really a salary you are stuck in a weird financial situation.

Despite all this, it is enough to live (around 1000 Eur) in most of the country except for the capital (due to house/rent prices have been increasing for the past 2 years at galloping rate), which is where a great number PhD granting institutions are located.

Not to pile up, I've also discovered that you can be granted a PhD fellowship for a project at an host institution that is under equipped (if has any equipment at all) for that project.

[mcv]

Still, what I hear from some PhD students is that even with decent pay, it's not a great career. The chances of getting tenure are tiny, academic freedom isn't what it once was, and if you enter the job market, the PhD mostly cost a lot of time without adding a whole lot of value. Unless it's in Machine Learning, maybe.

[NotPhysicsPhd]

I am not familiar with the situation in in other countries, but here there aren't many job opportunities for recent engineering/science graduates other than IT consultant. I've met people that took a PhD positions just because it was decent pay and less hours when compared with most junior and mid-level consultant jobs available.

In terms of adding value, I guess it depends on both the field and what your objectives are. For example, I work in a field where no one would offer you a job unless you have PhD or some sort insane amount of experience.

[mcv]

Really? My impression is that there's a permanent shortage of good programmers. Although my impression is that a big part of the reason is that Dutch companies are unwilling to raise the wages of programmers; that way they create their own shortage, of course.

[NotPhysicsPhd]

But there is a shortage of good programmers. By engineering/scientists in my previous comment, I meant every kind of engineer and scientist.

From my experience, IT companies only differentiate CS, electric engineers and computer engineers for entry/junior level it jobs from the rest of the engineering and scientist. Biochemists, civil engineers, physicists, chemical engineers, industrial engineers, etc. Are all the same for the HR and assume you have 0 coding skills.