Until quite recently, in all of the industrialised countries, PhD students were educated to form the elite and the managerial class of universities and public research bodies. Their careers depended primarily on the academic labour market. Since the late 1980s, the "production of PhDs" has become a much-discussed economic and social issue, and the thinking, reforms and tensions surrounding this category of graduates have gathered momentum. Vocational fields and the contents of the PhDs' training have evolved everywhere. However, the higher education and research institutions of the various countries have "marked out" this category of graduates in various ways and prepare PhDs differently to fit into certain segments of the labour market. The purpose of this paper, based on a (quantitative and qualitative) study of the ways in which PhDs are produced and integrated into the labour market, is to identify and compare Japanese and French policies and practices and the way they have evolved in recent years. In doing so, we seek to determine the societal foundation underpinning the labour market for PhD holders and the trajectory each of the countries is now following and to ascertain in which markets these graduates will be able to find employment.