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Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets
This Handbook addresses the changing nature of academic labour markets, as they respond to moving university goals and developments in the measurement of research and teaching. Experts examine case studies from across the Global North and South and consider key issues such as equity, diversity, cross-border employment, and the precarity of academic labour.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
This Handbook addresses the changing nature of academic labour markets, as they respond to moving university goals and developments in the measurement of research and teaching. Experts examine case studies from across the Global North and South and consider key issues such as equity, diversity, cross-border employment, and the precarity of academic labour.
The Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets highlights how national university systems interact with international policies. Chapters include in-depth research on the decline in permanent, tenured employment and the increase in temporary, insecure work, culminating in uncertain or non-existent career paths for many academics. Contributing authors discuss intersectional initiatives to increase the gender and ethnic diversity of academic staff, as well as complex topics such as third space work, for-profit institutions, online education, entrepreneurial gig research, work-life balance and the role of trade unions. Ultimately, this Handbook argues for new approaches to organising academic work, reinforcing the priority of serving the public good.
Comprehensive and innovative, this Research Handbook is a crucial read for scholars of higher education leadership and management, education policy, labour policy, and sociology of work. It will also benefit university staff and researchers considering and reflecting on their own careers.
The Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets highlights how national university systems interact with international policies. Chapters include in-depth research on the decline in permanent, tenured employment and the increase in temporary, insecure work, culminating in uncertain or non-existent career paths for many academics. Contributing authors discuss intersectional initiatives to increase the gender and ethnic diversity of academic staff, as well as complex topics such as third space work, for-profit institutions, online education, entrepreneurial gig research, work-life balance and the role of trade unions. Ultimately, this Handbook argues for new approaches to organising academic work, reinforcing the priority of serving the public good.
Comprehensive and innovative, this Research Handbook is a crucial read for scholars of higher education leadership and management, education policy, labour policy, and sociology of work. It will also benefit university staff and researchers considering and reflecting on their own careers.
Critical Acclaim
‘From Australia to South Africa, academic workers face enormous pressures for change that pile new regimes of managerial authority upon an already stressed workforce. This all-too-timely book is essential for understanding how these pressures undermine teaching and research within an increasingly globalized system of higher education.’
– Ellen Schrecker, (retired) Yeshiva University, US
‘Glenda Strachan and her impressive contributors have created one of the key resources on higher education in the 2020s. Intellectual labour is the heart of higher education and the faculty is growing in most countries. However, working conditions, autonomy and agency are limited and destabilised within neoliberal systems as competitive and performative universities put their own organisational interests ahead of education, students, scholarship and research. Providing wide-ranging and in-depth country studies, this Research Handbook analyses these trends and also investigates how individuals and groups still find ways to honour their vocation, collaborate with each other and deepen their work. There is much to learn from here.’
– Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, UK
‘The Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets explores multiple aspects of the academic profession and academic labour markets in a time of transition. The chapters, largely from a critical perspective, provide both general perspectives and case studies.’
– Philip G. Altbach, Boston College, US
– Ellen Schrecker, (retired) Yeshiva University, US
‘Glenda Strachan and her impressive contributors have created one of the key resources on higher education in the 2020s. Intellectual labour is the heart of higher education and the faculty is growing in most countries. However, working conditions, autonomy and agency are limited and destabilised within neoliberal systems as competitive and performative universities put their own organisational interests ahead of education, students, scholarship and research. Providing wide-ranging and in-depth country studies, this Research Handbook analyses these trends and also investigates how individuals and groups still find ways to honour their vocation, collaborate with each other and deepen their work. There is much to learn from here.’
– Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, UK
‘The Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets explores multiple aspects of the academic profession and academic labour markets in a time of transition. The chapters, largely from a critical perspective, provide both general perspectives and case studies.’
– Philip G. Altbach, Boston College, US
Contents
Contents
PART I ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKETS
1 Academic labour markets in the 21st century: an overview 2
Glenda Strachan
2 The contradiction of the corporate university: academic inefficiency and
the iron cage of bureaucracy 14
Clyde W. Barrow
3 Academic labour and the rise of Asia: mobility in a multi-polar
knowledge world 36
Anthony Welch and Futao Huang
4 Academic and professional identities in higher education: from
‘working in third space’ to ‘third space professionals’ 49
Celia Whitchurch
PART II CONDITIONS OF WORK: PRECARITY
5 The degrading of the professoriate in the United States: freedom,
creativity, and economic dynamism imperiled 65
Jon D. Wisman and Quentin Hedges Duroy
6 Contingent academic labour in public and private colleges and
universities: the diminishing status of college professors 78
Dell P. Champlin and Janet T. Knoedler
7 The Gig Academy: changing the global face of academy labour 91
Adrianna Kezar and Jude Paul Matias Dizon
8 The future of research careers in academia and the rise of the
entrepreneurial gig researcher 105
Anne Kovalainen and Seppo Poutanen
9 Academic staff trade unions: the past, present and future of faculty
unionisation in Canada 117
David Robinson
10 Challenging the fixed-term contract: the difficulties and prospects of
organising Germany’s academic precariat 130
Alexander Gallas and Anil Shah
PART III EQUITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKET
11 Institutional inertia as a tool of institutional racism: understanding
impediments to social change at an English university 145
Vini Lander, Mark McCormack and Liliana Belkin
12 The gendered interaction of discipline and role specialisation in
academic labour markets 159
David Peetz, Carolyn Troup and Glenda Strachan
13 Promoting and sustaining gender equality through Athena SWAN in an
Irish case study university 177
Eileen Drew
14 Understanding the slow progression to gender equality: the dynamics
between inequality and equality practices 189
Marieke van den Brink
15 Academics and work-life balance: deconstructing a concept and
outlining an intersectional framework for advancing research 200
Rodrigo Rosa
16 The gendered challenges of working from home in 2020–2021: an
Australian-Canadian study 214
Shalene Werth, David Peetz, Carolyn Troup and Glenda Strachan
PART IV NATIONAL ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKETS
17 Transformative change in democratising academic employment? Shifts
in South Africa’s academic labour and its racialised labour force 233
Dina Zoe Belluigi
18 The contested modernisation of Peruvian universities 244
Omar Manky and Juan Dolores
19 Internationalisation and the precarity of academic work in Indonesian
universities 254
Nurdiana Gaus
20 Crises and change: New Zealand academic labour markets 262
Sereana Naepi
21 Polarisation and casualisation: the changing academic workforce at
Australian universities 275
Peter Woelert and Gwilym Croucher
22 Academic labour markets in China: building excellence through competition 284
Huan Li and Hugo Horta
23 The transformation of academic employment in Japan from a closed to
an open system 293
Akira Arimoto
24 A long farewell to Napoleon? Institutional change and patterns of
differentiation in the French academic labour market 306
Julien Barrier and Emmanuelle Picard
25 Professors’ opportunity hoarding and ‘hamster wheels’ in the German
academic labour market 315
Christian Schneijderberg and Nicolai Götze
26 The academic labour market in Canada: tides of change 327
Shelagh Campbell
27 Tenure in the neoliberal era: implications for a segmented academic
labour market in the USA 339
Quentin Hedges Duroy
PART V THE FUTURE
28 On crises, opportunities and the academic profession 351
Janice Newson and Claire Polster
PART I ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKETS
1 Academic labour markets in the 21st century: an overview 2
Glenda Strachan
2 The contradiction of the corporate university: academic inefficiency and
the iron cage of bureaucracy 14
Clyde W. Barrow
3 Academic labour and the rise of Asia: mobility in a multi-polar
knowledge world 36
Anthony Welch and Futao Huang
4 Academic and professional identities in higher education: from
‘working in third space’ to ‘third space professionals’ 49
Celia Whitchurch
PART II CONDITIONS OF WORK: PRECARITY
5 The degrading of the professoriate in the United States: freedom,
creativity, and economic dynamism imperiled 65
Jon D. Wisman and Quentin Hedges Duroy
6 Contingent academic labour in public and private colleges and
universities: the diminishing status of college professors 78
Dell P. Champlin and Janet T. Knoedler
7 The Gig Academy: changing the global face of academy labour 91
Adrianna Kezar and Jude Paul Matias Dizon
8 The future of research careers in academia and the rise of the
entrepreneurial gig researcher 105
Anne Kovalainen and Seppo Poutanen
9 Academic staff trade unions: the past, present and future of faculty
unionisation in Canada 117
David Robinson
10 Challenging the fixed-term contract: the difficulties and prospects of
organising Germany’s academic precariat 130
Alexander Gallas and Anil Shah
PART III EQUITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKET
11 Institutional inertia as a tool of institutional racism: understanding
impediments to social change at an English university 145
Vini Lander, Mark McCormack and Liliana Belkin
12 The gendered interaction of discipline and role specialisation in
academic labour markets 159
David Peetz, Carolyn Troup and Glenda Strachan
13 Promoting and sustaining gender equality through Athena SWAN in an
Irish case study university 177
Eileen Drew
14 Understanding the slow progression to gender equality: the dynamics
between inequality and equality practices 189
Marieke van den Brink
15 Academics and work-life balance: deconstructing a concept and
outlining an intersectional framework for advancing research 200
Rodrigo Rosa
16 The gendered challenges of working from home in 2020–2021: an
Australian-Canadian study 214
Shalene Werth, David Peetz, Carolyn Troup and Glenda Strachan
PART IV NATIONAL ACADEMIC LABOUR MARKETS
17 Transformative change in democratising academic employment? Shifts
in South Africa’s academic labour and its racialised labour force 233
Dina Zoe Belluigi
18 The contested modernisation of Peruvian universities 244
Omar Manky and Juan Dolores
19 Internationalisation and the precarity of academic work in Indonesian
universities 254
Nurdiana Gaus
20 Crises and change: New Zealand academic labour markets 262
Sereana Naepi
21 Polarisation and casualisation: the changing academic workforce at
Australian universities 275
Peter Woelert and Gwilym Croucher
22 Academic labour markets in China: building excellence through competition 284
Huan Li and Hugo Horta
23 The transformation of academic employment in Japan from a closed to
an open system 293
Akira Arimoto
24 A long farewell to Napoleon? Institutional change and patterns of
differentiation in the French academic labour market 306
Julien Barrier and Emmanuelle Picard
25 Professors’ opportunity hoarding and ‘hamster wheels’ in the German
academic labour market 315
Christian Schneijderberg and Nicolai Götze
26 The academic labour market in Canada: tides of change 327
Shelagh Campbell
27 Tenure in the neoliberal era: implications for a segmented academic
labour market in the USA 339
Quentin Hedges Duroy
PART V THE FUTURE
28 On crises, opportunities and the academic profession 351
Janice Newson and Claire Polster
