I don’t know a large number of graduate students, so my info is anecdotal, but all of the young people I know that are pursuing PhD’s in humanities or arts majors are doing so because they couldn’t get decent paid work out of college. So after sitting around and volunteering for a year or so, they started on their next degree - MFA, PhD, or Masters. Some with the Masters found that didn’t really help with employment, so they went back to the familiar environment of the university. I’m not sure if each of these long-term students would have chosen to earn PhD’s or other grad degrees if the job market had been more welcoming.