The Early Career Paths and Employment Conditions of the Academic Profession in Seventeen Countries
Academia Europaea & Compagnia di San Paolo Conference
Diversification of Higher Education & the Academic Profession
Torino, 26-28 March 2009
Alice Bennion & William Locke, Centre for Higher Education Research & Information (CHERI)
Presentation outline
• Introduction: National differences & common drivers
• Early career paths of academics
• Employment conditions & pay
• Support for academic work & research collaboration
• Concluding comments & specific issues
Introduction: National differences
• Modes of preparation & training for the academic professions
• Recruitment & promotion practices
• Employment legislation
• Labour relations
• Forms, patterns & levels of remuneration
• Status & security of different segments of the profession
Introduction: Common drivers, impacts & responses
Drivers: Impacts: Responses:
Expansion Pressure on resources ‘Professionalisation’Massification Increased demands MobilityInternationalisation National interconnections Flexibility - Globalisation Declining status ‘casualisation’Marketisation Specialisation
Segmentation
Introduction: the CAP survey
• Importance of national & international contexts for analysis
• Complexities of comparative interpretation
• Definitions & consistency in use of terms
• Data not yet weighted
• Official national statistics might replace some CAP data
Early career paths of academics
• Degrees obtained
• Degrees obtained in country of current employment
• Characteristics of academic flows between national HE systems
• Age when degrees obtained
• Preparation for the academic profession
Early career paths: Doctoral degrees obtained
21-30% Mexico
31-40% Argentina, China, Malaysia
41-50% Finland, Italy
51-60% Brazil
61-70% Norway
71-80% Portugal, Australia, UK, Germany, Japan
81-90% Hong Kong, US
91-100% Canada, Korea
Early career paths: Degrees obtained in country of current employment
• Nationality/citizenship at birth & at First degree
• Six territories where more than 15% obtained their first degree from another country:
Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Norway, UK
• Hong Kong is the only territory where a minority obtained their First degree there
Early career paths: Country where Doctoral degree obtained (%)
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Japan Germany China Other Canada Australia UK US
27 1 2 2 3 6 10 22 29
Malaysia
Malaysia Canada Japan Other Australia US UK
40 1 2 4 5 11 37
Korea
Korea UK China Other Japan Germany US
57 1 1 2 4 5 30
Mexico
Mexico Italy Japan Germany Brazil Canada UK US Other
59 1 1 1 2 2 5 12 18
Early career paths: characteristics of academic flows
• Study abroad
• Magnetic
• Self-contained
Early career paths: Age when Doctoral degrees obtained
Age
29-30 UK, Italy
31-32 Germany, Canada, Japan, US
33-34 Hong Kong, Australia, China, Korea
35-36 Finland, Malaysia, Norway, Argentina, Portugal
37-38 Brazil, Mexico
Early career paths: Preparation for the academic professionHuge variations in form, duration, funding & status of doctoral programmes:
• Choice of research topic• Requirement to write a thesis• Prescribed set of courses• Intensity of faculty guidance• Involvement in research projects• Training for teaching• Service on a committee• Financial support/status: scholarship/fellowship/employment
Employment conditions
• Public servant or private employee
• Institutions: public & private mix
• Method of regulating the employment relationship– national collective bargaining– institutional employment regulations– individual/group bargaining
• Tenure: its form & strength
Modes of employment: full-time
51-60% Argentina, Brazil
61-70% -
71-80% -
81-90% Germany, Finland, Australia, UK
91-100% Mexico, Norway, Portugal, US, Hong Kong, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Korea
Modes of employment: part-time, paid according to work tasks
0% Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Portugal
1-10% Argentina, China, UK, US, Hong Kong (1%)
11-20% -
21-30% -
31-40% Brazil
Modes of employment: part-time
1-10% Japan, Korea, Canada, China, Malaysia, Italy, Hong Kong, Portugal, US, Finland, Norway, UK, Mexico
11-20% Brazil, Australia, Germany
21-30% -
31-40% -
41-50% Argentina
Volume of part-time as a percentage of full-time
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
MY (1
%)*
CH (1%
)
AR (43%
)
PT (3%
)
HK (3%
)
US (3%
)
BR (12%
)
AU (13%
)
DE (14%
)
FI (6%
)
CA (1%
)
MX (1
0%)
UK (9%
)
NO (8
%)
JP (0
%)
KR (0%
)
Vo
lum
e o
f p
art-
tim
e as
a %
of
full
-tim
e
* % of academics employed part-time in brackets after each country
Duration of employment: permanent/ continuous
21-30% Argentina
31-40% -
41-50% Hong Kong, Finland
51-60% Portugal, Korea
61-70% Germany, Australia
71-80% US, Canada, Norway, China
81-90% Malaysia, Mexico, Japan
91-100% (UK), Brazil
Duration of employment: fixed-term
1-10% Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, UK
11-20% Mexico
21-30% China, Norway, Canada, US
31-40% Finland, Australia, Germany
41-50% Korea, Portugal
51-60% Hong Kong
61-79% -
71-80% Argentina
Pay 1: Annual Gross Income (mean, US$)
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
MX CH AR MY BR KR FI AU IT UK DE NO PT CA US JP HK
An
nu
al G
ross
In
com
e (m
ean
s)
Pay 2: Overall Average Monthly Salaries US$ 2005/06
(from Rumbley et al, 2008)
Other benefits
• Pensions
• Loans
• Travel
• Accommodation
• Income from other employment
• Earnings from self-employment
• High degree of autonomy
• Interesting work
• Esteem of other scholars
Support for academic work
• Higher ratings for telecommunications, libraries & computing facilities
• Lower ratings for research funding and research & teaching support
• 1992/2007: Hong Kong academics still satisfied; Japan & Korea least satisfied
• Where different, senior academics are more satisfied than junior staff
Research collaboration
• Respondents in all countries (apart from Portugal) are more likely to collaborate than work alone
• Over half the respondents were collaborating with colleagues at other institutions within the same country (except for China)
• In half the countries a majority of respondents are collaborating with international colleagues
• Finland, Norway and Hong Kong are slightly more likely to collaborate internationally than within their own country
• Relative insularity of US respondents
Concluding comments
• Importance of national & local interpretation of responses
• Regional developments (e.g. EHEA, ERA)
• Impacts of international flows between South & North
• Overall demand for highly qualified expertise
Specific issues & questions
Links between:
• international mobility during training/early career & current level of international research collaboration?
• flexible employment conditions & opportunities for mobile young academics (& implications for less mobile mature academics)?
• national circumstances beyond HE & mobility: potential for regional/international action?
William LockeAssistant DirectorCentre for Higher Education Research & InformationThe Open University44 Bedford RowLondon WC1R 4LLTel: +44 (0)20 7447 2553Email: [email protected]
www.open.ac.uk/cheri