Gender inequity and precarity in European neoliberal academia: Working Paper

This working group was part of the European Universities – Critical Futures project. It met regularly between 2020 and 2023 to discuss ways in which academic precarity (in relation to short-term contracts) is exacerbating and creating barriers to gender and interrelated inequalities. The core group membership was made up of experts in the field from 16 European countries, expanding to a network of over 50 scholars at all stages of their careers. We explored the issue of gender and precarity by sharing our research through symposia, workshops, a seminar series, a knowledge exchange event, policy briefing, a working paper, a literature review and a Special Issue for the journal Learning and Teaching: International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences. These combined outputs have supported an emergent research agenda which connects academic precarity with considerations of equality and has sought to inform policy organisations and higher education practitioners. A knowledge exchange event in June 2023 identified the key impacts on women in particular, including barriers to career development, everyday experiences of working in universities, impacts on health and wellbeing, and gendered power imbalances. Group members argued that women are trapped in lower-level roles, denied developmental opportunities that bar them from progressing their careers within academia and are prevented from planning for their futures. In short, it was argued that current practices are inequitable, harmful and unsustainable.