The academic precariat deserves better

In the seven years since Claire Smith finished her PhD in modern languages in the UK, she has won four prizes, published two books and secured a prestigious fellowship that drew 900 applicants for 40 places.

What she hasn’t got is a job. She has worked a nine-month contract, a two-year contract, a three-year contract and another nine-month contract. For the last one, which was far from home, she would leave at 5am to start teaching at 10am, then stay in a cheap B&B or sofa-surf for three days a week. Now, having just had a baby, she doesn’t know when — or if — the next contract will come along. (She asked for a pseudonym for fear of damaging her prospects.)

In the public imagination, academia is synonymous with secure, even life-long, jobs. But in a number of countries, universities are perfect microcosms of what economists call dualised labour markets. Secure insiders work alongside a periphery of insecure outsiders who are jostling desperately to get…

Exit mobile version