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: w.d.locke@open.ac.uk

www.open.ac.uk/cheri