Casualisation; here to stay? The modern university and its divided workforce, Robyn May

Casualisation; here to stay? The modern university and its divided workforce Robyn May The terms of employment for casual academic teaching staff in Australian universities date back to a determination by the Academic Salaries Tribunal in 1980. Since that time the university sector has changed rapidly and casual academic employment has increased markedly to cope with expansion of the sector under significant resource constraints. This paper examines literature and statistical data about employment of casual academic teaching staff, reviews changes over several decades, and examines employer responses.

Employer responses focused on the individual casual staff, conceptualising these staff as a risk to the organisation, are critically examined. Using previously unreleased data from the industry superannuation fund, Unisuper, new light is thrown on the ‘lost generation’ (Hugo, 2008). The twin pressures of an ageing workforce, and a government push to have 40% of 2534 year olds with a degree by 2025, requires a fresh approach to the employment of teaching staff in Australian universities.

Introduction The issues associated with casual academic employment in Australia’s universities have been reasonably well canvassed by the literature over the last two decades. A 1991 survey of casual academic staff at UNSW found that staff were dissatisfied with facilities, including access to appropriate equipment to perform their job, lack of adequate training, and concerns about workload (Fine, Graham & Paxman, 1992). Two decades on from that study, and while the titles have changed, from casual to ‘sessional’, and even ‘teaching associate’, the issues associated with casual academic teaching remain much the same. In today’s university the casualisation of the teaching component of academic work appears to be well and truly embedded, despite the increased awareness of the associated risks and challenges for universities, and the well documented disadvantages faced by the casual staff.

Since the mid 1980s the overwhelming majority of new academic staff appointed in the Australian university sector have been casual staff, and it is estimated that the majority of undergraduate teaching is now performed by casual staff (Percy et al. 2008). This response is peculiarly Australian and whilst insecure employment exists in the university sector of many other countries it tends to be more of a fixed term, eg. UK, Canada, (Bryson and Barnes 2000; Rajagopal and Lin 1996) or non-tenured, often part-time nature, eg. USA (Gappa 2000), in contrast to the hourly rate nature of Australia’s casual response.

The emergent bifurcated workforce in Australia’s universities has been described as the ‘tenured core and tenuous periphery’ (Kimber 2003), and the implications for the academic profession, and for the university sector are profound. Increasingly there is an understanding of the gendered nature of the casual teaching workforce (Bassett 1998; Castleman et al. 1995; Coates et al. 2009a). Whilst the literature has speculated on the reasons why casualisation is 

PhD candidate, Griffith University. This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (project LP0991191), the project leader is Professor Glenda Strachan at Griffith University. The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council. The author is the recipient of an APAI scholarship with the project, and additional financial assistance from the Griffith Business School. Thanks to Glenda Strachan and Iain Campbell for assistance with this paper, Greg Furey at Unisuper for extraction of the Unisuper data, and to the two anonymous referees. Any errors or omissions are my own.

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gendered, and some of the implications, no clear explanation has yet emerged. Women now outnumber men in enrolments in doctorate by research courses (DEEWR 2008), and are entering academe in greater numbers. However women’s progress at breaking into the professoriate is slow and the growth of less secure employment, both casual and fixed term, appears to be hindering the career advancement of many women staff.

There is recent evidence of universities starting to respond to the problems identified as being associated with casual work. The motivations, however, appear directed toward risk management, and responding to unfavourable Australian University Quality Agency (AUQA) reports. The responses of university managements appear to be about making the individual casual staff member the focus for attending to risk. Improvements to casuals’ employment conditions, such as separate payment for marking, won in recent hard fought collective bargaining rounds by the staff union, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), may serve to further entrench the ‘sessionalised’ and individualised response of universities, and fail to deal with the real issue.

This paper examines new data from the universities superannuation fund, Unisuper, never before released for research purposes of this nature, which will allow for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the size, scale and demographic of the casual academic labour force. This data will form part of new research to tackle research questions around gender, career paths, employer and employee motivations, experiences and explanations. The paper questions speculation around academic labour supply shortages, particularly that forecasted

by Hugo (2005, 2008). Using early data from Unisuper, the ‘lost generation’ (Hugo 2008:42) of academic staff, may in reality be the ‘generation lost to casualisation’ and it is questioned whether many of them have been in fact abandoned by the university sector.

The growth and nature of casual employment in universities The defining characteristics of casual work have been debated in the literature. Campbell (1996) argues that precariousness and absence of rights are at the heart of casual employment. Others have suggested casual work represents a ‘commodification’ of labour, (Pocock et al. 2005), with the growth in casual employment underscoring a wider shifting of the risks of employment from employer to the employee (Hall et al. 2000). A different perspective is offered by Curtain (2001) in an examination of casual workers’ orientations towards vocational education and training, concluding that ‘ a major defining characteristic of casual workers is the absence of a career path’ (2001:111) Casual employment has been a growing and persistent feature of the Australian labour market since the 1980s. Casual work is a particularly Australian manifestation of non-standard employment, which sits firmly in the context of wider economic, regulatory and labour market changes that have taken place over the last three decades. More than 1 in 5 Australian workers are employed on a casual basis, and casual workers are more likely to be young, female and less well qualified than the rest of the workforce, clustered in service based industries (Campbell 2010; Kryger 2004). Explanations for Australia’s growth in casual work, and casualisation have varied. One explanation offered by Campbell (2001) identifies employer strategy as one of the major explanatory variables in the expansion of casual employment, arguing employers have deliberately used regulatory gaps in the award system to drive down labour costs, and respond to product market competition.

Universities present a unique pattern of casual labour usage in the Australian context. Whilst features in common with the wider labour market are the gendered nature of the casual workforce (Pocock 1998), the precarious nature of the employment relationship (Campbell 1996) and demand side drivers (Richardson and Law 2009) there are stark differences. In 2

contrast to the wider casual workforce, casual academic staff are amongst the highest qualified in the Australian workforce, with academic staff amongst the longest to educate.

The method of pay determination for casual academic staff in universities is also a unique feature as it represents a ‘rate for the job’, rather than the more standard hour’s pay for an hour’s work. The other unique aspect is the notion of professional work reduced to an hourly rate, for example, a lecture may take 10 hours to prepare however the payment is for 3. This ‘3 hour formula’ has its origins in a 1980 recommendation of the Academic Salaries Tribunal, for staff in Australia’s then 19 Universities. The formula determined that each hour of face to face teaching would also include payment for two hours of associated preparation, marking, administration, and student consultation. In 1987 a 20% loading was codified in the first salary award for the sector to compensate for the absence of entitlements normally associated with employment such as sick leave and annual leave. The casual loading is now 25% at most universities (NTEU 2010). Over the 30 year period since the ‘three hour formula’ was established, the components of that three hours have been greatly expanded.

Some of the reasons for this expansion include; the doubling of tutorial class sizes, the changed student demographic, the advent of email and internet (NTEU 2007a). In short the environment within which academic work is performed is now very different.

The 1980 Academic Salaries Tribunal recommendation conceptualised a casual staff member as one coming from outside of the university to offer a particular expertise on a limited term basis, offering ‘skills not ordinarily possessed by those who may be attracted into full time service at the lowest position in the lecturer range’ (AST 1980:28). Further the capacity to employ such staff was limited by the ‘60% rule’ which in effect meant that casual academic staff could not be employed to teach for more than around four hours a week (AST 1980: 21).

Since that time the casual academic workforce has expanded significantly and greatly beyond the initially framed industry expert, or clinician, and the expansion can be traced alongside changes to industrial arrangements in the sector. The first award covering University staff in 1987 reinforced the 60% rule and the three hour formula. However the move to enterprise bargaining in the 1990s saw the 60% rule weakened, as well as an increase in teaching load for academic staff. Award gains of the late 1990s which limited universities capacity to employ fixed term staff resulted in increases in both ongoing and casual employment. The capacity to restrict fixed term and casual employment was removed by Workchoices in 2006, and whilst steady but lower rates of increase in casual staff continued after that time, fixed term employment increased at a greater rate (May et al. 2008).

A typology of the profile of the current casual academic workforce is proposed in Table 1 below, drawing heavily on the work of Junor (2004), Gottschalk and McEachern (2007, 2010) and Gappa and Leslie (1993).

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Table 1. Casual academic teaching staff typology Description

Characteristics

Motivations

Career intentions

Employment mode preference

Post grad student Post grad student Industry expert

Younger

Income and academic position Income

Academic position

Full time academic position in future

Want to teach

Industry career

Casual/part time

Seeking possible career change Wants an academic career

Academic career in future Academic career

Full or part time

Industry expert Academic aspirant Casual by ‘choice’

Younger Middle aged, male -Main income is from industry position As above Casual position is main income Maybe other sources of family income, female

Outside academia

Casual work suits Seeking an current family academic career in circumstances the future Retiree Supplementing pension, Want to teach want Happy as is older to work Source: Junor (2004) Gottschalk and McEachern (2007, 2010) Gappa and Leslie (1993)

Full or part time Part time

Casual/part time

The workforce is diverse, with staff exhibiting a variety of individual motivations and preferences. Post graduate students are a component of the workforce; some of these will be seeking an academic career in the future, others working casually to supplement a scholarship or other income and may intend to seek employment outside of the sector on completion of studies. It is speculated that ‘industry specialists’, that is those whose primary employment is outside of the university sector, may fall into one of two categories. There will be those who work casually because they like to teach, and intend to remain in their outside employment.

There may be another category of ‘industry specialists’ who may be seeking a career change to academia in the future, prompted by the experience of teaching.

The categories of interest to this research are that of staff seeking an academic career either presently in or in the future. There is evidence that casual employment is the preference of only a minority, with Junor (2004:284) finding that only 28% of casual academics in her sample preferred casual employment. Further it has also been found that some women in particular have accepted casual teaching work as part of a career maintenance strategy during early child bearing and child raising years (Gottschalk and McEachern 2007; Gottschalk and McEachern 2010). These have been labelled casuals by ‘choice’, although notions of choice require careful navigation.

Poor data collection to date has meant little is known about the qualifications of the workforce, their individual motivations and career plans. What we do know however is that women are more likely to form its ranks than men and that the casual workforce is younger than the ongoing academic workforce. Recent analysis of DEEWR staffing data shows that in 2008, 28% of all female teaching academic staff were employed casually, compared with 19% of male teaching academic staff (DEEWR 2010). Castleman et al (1995:4) argue that ‘women’s increased participation in higher education in employment is concentrated in insecure, especially casual positions..’ and that this was not just a legacy of the past but something that was continuing to be replicated within the system. Others argue that a large ‘underclass’ of women academics exists, ‘defined by and restricted to their non-tenurable status’, suggesting that a range of factors including a masculine culture within academia, and the incompatibility of family life with full time academic work, contribute (Bassett and Marshall 1996). These factors are compounded and magnified by the lack of career development, and marginalization of casual staff, the consequence being a ‘culmulative 4

disadvantage’ (Primack and O'Leary 1993) for women. A study of casual academic staff at UNSW found that women tended to be in casual employment for longer, despite being more qualified than the men in their sample. The authors were unable to explain why this was the case but speculated that casual employment militated against advancement differently for women than it did for men (Fine et al. 1992:26).

It is important to be clear about the contractual basis upon which university academic staff can be employed. Staff are employed in one of only three possible employment categories; on an ongoing basis (with probation periods of between 3 to 7 years), on a fixed term basis, or on a casual (hourly) basis. The full suite of academic ‘privileges’ apply to ongoing staff, such as merit based promotion, access to sabbatical, professional development, and appeal rights around redundancy and dismissal. To a lesser extent these also apply to fixed term staff, during the life of their contract, although the fixed term nature of the employment relationship means that conditions such as promotion and professional development may be hard to access, and benefits such as maternity leave are only available during the life of the contract. Fixed term staff can generally only be dismissed summarily, for serious misconduct, and not misconduct, and have no entitlement to employment beyond the length of their contract. The third category of employment, casual employment is characterised by its hourly nature and absence of regular entitlements such as sick pay and holiday pay. This is in stark contrast to the conditions of ongoing and fixed term staff as described above.

Most casual academic teaching staff are employed for a semester, however, casual teaching staff may also be engaged on a one- off basis, typically for a guest lecture. The commonly used ‘sessional’ designation appears to be point beyond casual status, as employment is often for the semester and time sheets are not required. However the reality is the ‘sessional’ is engaged by the hour, can be fired with an hour’s notice and is largely excluded from the benefits of academic employment. Of the total academic workforce on a full time equivalent (FTE) basis, traditional ongoing (‘tenured’) academics are now 59% of the workforce, fixed term staff comprise 19% and casual staff 22% (Coates et al. 2009a; Dobson 2010).

New data on casual academic staff Using data never before released for research purposes, a more accurate picture of the casual academic teaching workforce can be documented. Access has been obtained to aggregate data held by the university staff superannuation fund, Unisuper, to which over 95% of eligible staff belong. This data is a valuable resource from which to glean a more accurate picture of the casual academic workforce. These numbers include only those who earn more than $450 in any month, as per government requirement for receiving superannuation payments.

Analysis of the membership of the Unisuper Accumulation 1 Account, to which only staff receiving 9% superannuation can belong (that is casual staff and fixed term staff on short term contracts), will enable the best attempt to date at a calculation of the headcount size of the casual teaching workforce.

The information held by Unisuper on each individual member is only as good as that supplied by the employing university. Some universities supply information as to the employment status, ie. Casual or permanent, of the staff member, others do not. In order to make an estimate of the headcount of casual teaching staff within Accumulation 1 Account, a proxy for a casual teaching academic of an employment period of 9 months or less over the calendar year was established. This approximates a casual teaching academic’s semester based employment of March to October, and is the most accurate way of estimating the casual teaching workforce. This proxy was applied to members who had been with Unisuper for longer than 12 months, in the case of those with less than 12 months in Unisuper, only those with 6 months employment or less, and the designation ‘casual’ in their file (as per 5

information supplied by employers) were included. The total pool of active Accumulation 1 Account members (that is they had received a superannuation payment in the last 100 days) who have held an account for longer than 12 months is around 110,000 staff. It is estimated, using the 9 month and 6 month proxy described above, that as at 30 June 2010 there were approximately 67,000 casual academic staff. A number of assumptions are made about the characteristics of this group. It is possible that the group also includes some general staff, and fixed term staff employed on short term contracts. It is possible also that some casual academic teaching staff who work during summer trimesters may not be captured using a 9 month proxy.

Table 2: Unisuper data June 2010 casual teaching staff headcount by age, and gender 25,000

20,000 15,000 Female

10,000

Male

5,000 0 Under 25

25-35

35-45

45-55

55-65

65 and over

Source: Unisuper, 2010, unpublished aggregated data

Of the estimated 67,000 casual academic staff employed by universities across Australia, 57% are women (Unisuper, 2010). These numbers include only those who earn more than $450 in any month, and therefore exclude the one-off guest lecturer. When compared to the most recent DEEWR full time equivalent figures, which are for 2008, it suggests that one FTE equates to around seven or eight actual casual staff members (DEEWR, 2010).

The age profile of this group is considerably younger than the ongoing academic staff age profile, with 52% of the casual academic cohort aged 35 or younger. Of note also is the gender breakdown in each of the age categories, women form almost two-thirds of casual academic staff aged between 25-35 and 35-45. These age categories correspond with prime child bearing and child rearing ages, but also correspond with the age categories described as the ‘lost generation’ from the ongoing academic staff cohort, as discussed below (see Hugo, 2008). Women are under-represented in the ‘retiree’ category of those 55 and over, and have similar proportions to men in the young (under 25 year old) category.

The changed university Labour process theory provides a framework for understanding the wider pressures at play in the university sector, how academic work has been broken down and the teaching component casualised (Bryson 2004; Wilmot 1995). By examining notions of control, fragmentation and deskilling, the process by which academic labour has been taken apart, and partly replaced by an ‘underclass’ of casual teaching staff, can be explained (Braverman 1974; Wilmot 1995).

The Dawkins’ reforms of the late 1980s opened university participation to a much wider population and heralded the so called ‘massification’ of Australian higher education 6

(Marginson 2000). At the same time universities adopted private sector management practices (Kimber 2003), characterized by Marginson (2009) as ‘new public management’, in part to deal with reduced government funding, particularly during the period of the Howard Liberal Coalition Government, 1996-2007. During the period 1995-2004 federal government expenditure on universities as a share of GDP, fell by 4% (NTEU 2007). By 2007 the state was a minority funder of the university sector, with only 45% of university funding from government sources (state and federal) (Marginson 2009), in stark contrast with the 1986 figure of 87% (Marginson 2000).

New public management has been associated with ‘the development of far greater levels of regulation and monitoring of both institutions and individuals’ (Thomas and Davies 2002:374) and is not simply about a drive to cut costs, rather is part of a re-ordering of the status of the university sector and making it more accountable for public monies (Thomas and Davies 2002). This has given rise to the ‘performative university’ which Blackmore and Sachs (2003) argue ‘focuses on measureable and marketable consumer satisfaction’, at the expense of ‘luxuries’ such as diversity and gender equity (Blackmore and Sachs 2003: 141).

New public management has driven a new corporatist and managerialist approach to the management of academic labour (Marginson 2000), compounded by an increased student staff ratio from 16:1 to 21:1 in the period 1996-2005 with student load growing by 45% (NTEU 2007). Recent surveys of academic staff have found increasing levels of dissatisfaction at work, related to the perception of increased academic workload (Coates et al. 2009a; Lazarsfeld Jensen and Morgan 2009).

The drivers of casualisation in Australian universities Campbell (2001) describes five potential advantages that casual employment provides to employers. Casual employees can be much cheaper to employ than ongoing employees; it can be much easier to dismiss a casual; casual employees can be used to manage fluctuations in workload in a way that is not possible with permanently engaged staff; employing casuals can be administratively convenient; and finally, and possibly most critically, casual employees can allow management greater control (Campbell 2001). This framework is useful for understanding why casual academic employment has grown rapidly in the university sector.

There is no doubt that employing a casual academic is far cheaper than employing a tenured academic, particularly as the casual academic is not paid to do research (Anderson et al.

2002; Argall 2007). Indeed a rough calculation would suggest that the cost to employ a casual is roughly 30% of the cost of an ongoing (teaching and research) academic staff member (May et al 2008). Many casual staff report being acutely aware that their employment is based on them being the ‘cheaper option’ (Brown et al. 2010).

The question of whether the employment of casual academic staff allows greater management control has not been explored in any depth in the literature. The appointment of casual academic staff can be seen as management ‘relieving themselves of the responsibilities’ associated with continuing employment (Kimber 2003; Kogan et al. 1994) whilst at the same time dealing with fluctuations in student load. Further the management of ‘quality assurance’ such that it is, can be delivered by simply not renewing the contracts of those casual staff for which there is perceived to be a problem with performance. However Percy etal (2008:11) concludes that ‘quality assurance of sessional teaching in many institutions is inadequate’.

The question of control can also be looked at in the context of precisely what work, and how much work, will be tolerated by a casual staff member, given the unbounded hours nature of the casual employment contract, and that ‘casuals are invisible in the academy’ (Brown et al.

2010:179). The vulnerability of semester to semester casual employment was noted by Junor (2004) to be a significant issue for the majority of casual academics, a third of her sample of 7

casual academics felt that their insecure status meant they were less able to refuse work demands that they thought were unreasonable. Performing unpaid work, particularly for activities such as student consultation, and professional reading in order to maintain their own professional currency ranked high as unreasonable demands (Junor, 2004).

The notion of greater management control might also apply to the permanent academic staff whose work is being ‘disassembled’ (Marginson 2000). In a study of academic workload at University of Western Sydney Lazarsfeld Jenson and Morgan (2009) found that full time academic staff felt that their work was intensified by having to hire and support casual staff who in their view were not always as committed to the same high standards as ongoing staff.

The impact of casualisation on ongoing academic staff who are increasingly required to take responsibility for the hiring, management and compliance aspects of often large numbers of casual teaching staff, has not been well documented.

The casualisation of academic employment has impacted on the composition and profile of ongoing academic employment. Analysis of the available Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) staff statistics shows that in 1996 the share of academic positions on a FTE equivalent non casual basis, at Level D and above, was 19%.

In 2008 that figure had risen to 25%, and this increase has occurred at the expense of a hollowing out of level B positions (DEEWR 2010). Level As’ share of non casual FTE positions remained steady at 19%. However recent reporting from the Queensland University of Technologies ‘HR benchmarking’ report (Trounson 2010) notes that some 86% of positions at level A are fixed term (many of these are research only positions) and that turnover was high, with almost one in four fixed term contracts not renewed. In summary universities appear to be employing greater numbers at the professoriate level (reflecting an older, stable workforce and the impact of promotions) and both hollowing out at level B, and narrowing and making employment more precarious at level A. Women form 53% of level A positions, and 41% of all academic positions (DEEWR, 2009). Level A, traditionally the academic career entry point, appears now to be a holding place, confining staff in either casual or revolving fixed term positions. In its place Level B, and sometimes Level C, become the career entry point. However, increasingly high barriers placed to entry at these levels, mean that casual staff are often uncompetitive due to lack of research outputs, and instead new career paths are emerging via research intensive positions, or appointment of overseas applicants.

Employer responses – the quality agenda The response of university managements over the very recent period as it comes to terms with the magnitude of the casual academic workforce has been slow, and in many cases only prompted by unfavourable AUQA reports pointing out the risks to educational quality of heavy reliance on casual staff. The AUQA report of an audit of Southern Cross University (SCU) (AUQA 2008:4) for instance, notes that in 2007 SCU had 270 full time equivalent (FTE) continuing staff, and 130 FTE ‘sessional’ (casual) academic staff, which constituted higher ratios of casual academic staff compared to other universities. In the report AUQA recommended that, ‘SCU determine an optimum sessional staff profile and implement a comprehensive plan for sessional staff employment, including retention, contract management and professional and scholarly development’ (2008:7). AUQA noted that ‘the university needs to form a view on the level of the sessional workforce that is appropriate for various disciplines, having regard to the risks to sustained scholarship of employing short term contract staff.’ (2008:10). Similarly, the report for Victoria University (AUQA 2006) notes the university’s higher than average reliance on casual academic staff and recommended that the university conduct a review of the employment of casual staff and develop a strategy for the management and support of these staff (2006:45-6). It is not clear 8

what each of these universities mentioned has done in response to these reports, or that the reports are sufficient to bring about changes in the balance of staffing.

The Australian Teaching and Learning Council’s RED report (Percy et al. 2008) attempts to document some of the risks associated with reliance on casual staff, noting that ‘quality assurance of sessional teachers in many institutions is inadequate’, which could lead to institutional risk management being compromised (2008:11) Further, some universities (eg.

Macquarie University, University of Canberra) have endeavoured to examine their casual staff usage in an institution wide manner, using Australian Teaching and Learning Council grants to develop professional development programs to varying degrees of success. The responses can be seen as conceptualising the risks in a teaching and learning framework which includes improved induction, which in many cases means creating an induction program where one never existed before, improved access to facilities, and some limited professional development for casual staff. In other words instead of being recognized as a problem that might require a new structural approach, casuals, and casualisation, are being ‘institutionalized’ (Leatherman 1997). The use of the term ‘sessional’, and a more recent innovation, ‘teaching associate sessional’ to describe casual academic staff is symptomatic of this institutionalization, underscored by an individualised, personalised response that focuses in on the casual staff member as the problem that needs to be fixed.

By simply conceptualizing casual academic employment in a teaching and learning framework with a compartmentalized ‘risk management’ strategy of induction and professional development, the real risks to casual staff, to students and to the university itself, remain. Evidence about good teaching practise is ignored in favour of an approach that blames the victim (Percy and Beaumont 2008). There are also risks inherent to a precarious employment relationship, where neither party is encouraged to commit their resources because there are no guarantees of security for either party. This lack of security means casual staff are not encouraged to invest in their teaching materials and teaching practice, as there is little chance of a return on the investment (Barrett 2004). Instead of a holistic examination of casualisation within the university, the response is personalised to the individual casual who becomes the focus for dealing with quality and risk.

Few studies have directly examined the role of employer strategy in explaining the growth of casualisation in academia. The interaction between staffing decisions and budget determinations is explored by Castleman, Allen et al (1995), who note that casual employment decisions are usually taken at head of department/school level, whilst budget decisions occur at much higher levels, thus leaving only discretion around the staffing balance between permanent and casual, for the head of school struggling to keep to budget.

This managerial division of labour impacts upon the organisation and operation of the labour market (Blair 2001), an area that has not been explored at all in the literature on casual academic employment. For the casual academic often their only contact point in the institution in which they work is the academic who hires them. In a survey of a casual academic staff in UNSW, Fine, Graham et al (1992) note they were struck by the ‘highly personalized nature of casual appointments’ (1992:51), by which they meant everything from recruitment, instruction and supervision. The academic hiring casual staff typically has little control over budget decisions, and those making budget decisions typically have no interaction with casual staff nor awareness of them.

Hugo and the ‘lost generation’ The discussion around Australia’s ageing academic workforce has occurred alongside a broader economy-wide discussion on workforce ageing and the implications of the imminent retirement of the baby boomer generation. Hugo’s (2005, 2008) analysis of the age structure 9

of the Australian academic workforce shows that the workforce is older than most other professional groups and therefore the need for attention to workforce renewal is even more acute. The majority of academic staff, some 56%, fall in the over 50 years category, in comparison to the workforce wide proportion of 42% (Hugo and Morriss 2010). As a consequence the university sector is likely to lose substantial numbers of academic staff over the coming decade to retirement. Whilst a significant expansion of academic teaching staff numbers took place in the 1970s and 1980s, Hugo (2005:330) notes that the decade 19912001 saw a slowing of the growth in teaching staff numbers, and this went hand in hand with a 46.5% increase in the student staff ratio. The consequence has been a ‘lost generation’ of potential academic staff (Hugo 2008) largely due to the sector’s failure to hire, but also possibly due to these potential staff finding better opportunities elsewhere, including academic positions overseas.

The under-representation of women in the academic labour force is also highlighted by Hugo (2008) as an area of concern, although he notes the gender ratio is improving. Women can be seen as a potential solution to the future staffing needs. Hugo (2010) notes that whilst women currently retire earlier than men, extra support should be provided to encourage women to stay longer in their academic careers, and retention will be a critical part of any strategy to deal with future workforce issues. The other key factor will be to encourage some of the thousands of academics working overseas to return home (Hugo 2008).

The work of Hugo (Hugo 2005; Hugo 2008; Hugo and Morriss 2010) appears to be the most influential and widely accepted in relation to the future picture of the academic labour force, and has contributed to a sense of crisis about skill shortages and workforce renewal in the university sector. Hugo’s work however gives only the briefest nod to the highly casualised nature of academic teaching, and the consequent impact this has on the changed and changing nature of the academic profession into the future. This may be a consequence of the poor data collection relating to casual staff and the failure to accurately capture its real size and scale, the heterogeneous nature of the casual academic workforce, or simply a reflection of the invisible nature of this workforce. He notes, ‘Casualisation can allow individuals and organizations more flexibility in managing their lives on one hand, and the demand for programs on the other. However there is limited information on the capability and quality of these teachers’ (2010:74). Hugo’s analysis concurs with that of Coates, Dobson et al (2009b) who question the capacity of the casualised teaching workforce to be part of the solution to the coming workforce crisis. However, they at least acknowledge that more research is necessary about this particular group of staff in order to properly answer that question.

Conclusion In examining the age profile of the casual cohort described in Table 2, compared with the age profiles detailed by Hugo (2008) some information is captured about the ‘lost generation’ suggesting that many have been ‘lost to casualisation’ and for those in this group who are there because they are seeking an academic career, it suggests that rather than them being lost to the university sector they have been in fact abandoned by it.

In considering this data many other questions arise and further work is suggested. As part of an ARC linkage grant; Gender and Employment Equity: Strategies for Advancement in Australian Universities, the research project will endeavour to understand and document the determinants of the casualisation of academic employment in Australia, and the implications for employees, university management and public policy, using a mixed methods research design. Alongside the Unisuper data will be a survey sent to 10,000 employees, targeting a statistically significant sample of casual staff, to gather data about objective employment conditions, and employment preferences and motivations. The third level of data will involve 10

a case study of two individual universities, and through interviews with casual academic staff, and with senior university managers who have oversight of casual teaching staff, explore the issues raised by the employee survey in more depth and also gain an understanding of the employer strategy and motivation. The gendered nature of casual employment will be explored at each level of the data.

The university sector appears to be aware of the challenges it faces in relation to replacing an ageing workforce, the recruitment and retention of high quality academic staff said to be ‘the single biggest issue confronting the sector over the next decade’ (Bradley 2008). At the same time, however, it appears that a large cohort of staff who could be part of the solution, are being excluded from consideration, let alone participation. The factors that have brought about this labour market mismatch deserve much closer attention, and a more nuanced approach. All is not well amongst the wider academic workforce either, with Australian academics expressing lower levels of job satisfaction than academics from other countries, and the highest levels of any academic population looking to change their job (Coates et al.

2009b). More work is needed to explain these issues and more importantly to contribute to the discussion about a new approach.

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