INTRODUCTION
The most notable development in the structure of academic employment in the United States over the last 40 years has arguably been the increase in contingent employment. According to data from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), tenure-track and tenured faculty taken together represented only 26.9% of all instructional staff in 2013, while full-time non-tenure track (e.g. visiting assistant professors) and part-time staff (adjuncts) accounted for 61% (Barnshaw and Dunietz Reference Barnshaw and Dunietz2015, 13). Between 1975 and 2013, the growth in the number of academics working off the tenure-track has outpaced the growth of “regular” faculty by a ratio of nearly ten to one (AAUP 2013).
In many ways, similar developments have taken place in Europe. In spite of important differences in access, job security, and career paths across countries (Musselin Reference Musselin2005; Reference Musselin2009), a movement of casualization has taken place, and fixed-term employment has generally grown at a much faster pace than permanent employment. For instance, the corresponding developments in France look similar to the United States. While the number of professors increased by 38% between 1992 and 2013, the number of non-permanent instructional staff increased by 82% during the same period (Ministère de l’Education Nationale 2015). In the Netherlands, the share of fixed-term employment among academic staff increased from 37% to 42% between 2007 and 2014, and from 22% to 32% for entry-level positions (equivalent to assistant professor) (VSNU 2015). However, institutional differences have clearly mediated the way academic employment systems have adapted to these developments, and prospects in terms of job security for both local and international entrants are fairly different across countries.
This article provides a brief overview of regimes of academic employment in a number of (West) European countries, using a typology based on two dimensions: the extent to which they are open to PhD graduates from other countries, and the availability of tenure-track mechanisms of career advancement. It also provides information on career paths and salaries while briefly reviewing individual countries. The article pays particular attention to the labor market for political scientists, but the data used is often only available at more aggregate levels. In general, the characteristics of national labor markets outlined here apply across disciplines. The specificities of job markets for political scientists are mentioned when applicable.
Structural Developments: Increased Demand, Budget Constraints and More PhDs
There are both demand- and supply-related factors behind the transformation of European systems of academic employment. The first is the important expansion in access to higher education in nearly all European countries. In the 28 countries of the European Union, the number of students enrolled in higher education institutions increased by 13.2% between 2003 and 2012 (the corresponding figure is 26.4% in the United States). This increase was particularly spectacular in smaller countries such as Austria (+63.8%), the Netherlands (+50.7%), Switzerland (+44.9%), but also in Germany (+31%), where tertiary education has gained in importance compared to the traditionally strong vocational sector (Eurostat Reference Eurostat2014). Data for political science students is hard to come by, but developments in specific countries indicate that numbers have also been on the rise, even to a higher extent than the average. In the UK, for instance, the number of political science students increased by 125% between 1996 and 2012, against 75% for economics and 42% for all disciplines (Matthews Reference Matthews2014).
Higher education spending and the total number of teaching staff have also increased to keep up with this expansion, and often in even greater proportions than the evolution of student numbers. This is remarkable given that the predominance of public institutions and low fees in Europe make it difficult to pass on costs onto students directly. In spite of these budget constraints, between 2005 and 2011, OECD countries were spending 10% more per student than in 2005, and the number of staff employed in higher education increased as well. In 2011, for example, German universities were employing 41% more academics than in 2005, with a corresponding growth of 14% in the United Kingdom. As a whole, the number of “classroom teachers and academic staff” in tertiary education in a sample of 18 European countries had increased by 17% between 2005 and 2012 (OECD Higher Education Statistics 2015). Footnote 1
However, these numbers do not provide a great deal of information on the type of jobs that have been created. If data on types of employment are difficult to come by, there is ample evidence that a significant proportion have been fixed-term or part-time jobs. In a context of uncertain fiscal prospects, university administrations have often favored fixed-term positions which allowed for a greater level of flexibility. One factor that has facilitated this has been supply-driven. Indeed, there has been an immense increase in the number of PhD graduates, that is, in the size of the supply of labor that qualifies for instructional positions. Between 2006 and 2012, the number of students enrolled in PhD programs had increased by 40% in the 28 countries of the European Union, with 35% in the social sciences (including political science), business, and law. Since the number of potential applicants for each faculty position has increased at a higher pace than the number of jobs, it has provided hiring departments with a greater leeway to employ academics along more flexible terms. In a market with often rigid wage structures, this mismatch between supply and demand has been met through employment terms rather than wages. In many ways, these structural factors have created the conditions for the creation of a dual labor market (Piore Reference Piore and Gordon1971), where a core of academics in secure employment coexists with an expanding periphery of workers with insecure job prospects (Afonso Reference Afonso2014). Against this background common to many European countries (and to the United States), there are however important differences in the organization of academic job markets and the way they have dealt with these structural changes.
Varieties of Academic Labor Markets
Academic labor markets in Europe display a number of characteristics that set them apart from the United States. The first, and most important, is a much greater degree of segmentation. Language barriers and different systems of organization make mobility much costlier across countries, and there is certainly no unified “European academic job market” with unified rules. The second is generally more organized labor markets and less differentiation in salaries across disciplines and ranks. The public sector still representing the bulk of academic employment, salary scales are set by law or through collective bargaining arrangement for the whole sector, and therefore provide less flexibility in employment conditions (see figure 1). Throughout Europe, there is a substantial “gender-scissors” effect operating in social science disciplines in European countries. The survey conducted by Marimon et al. (Reference Marimon, Guardiancich, Mariathasan and Rossi2011, 10) showed that while women represented 45% of doctoral students in political science, the share of female full professors was only 21%.
Language barriers and different systems of organization make mobility much costlier across countries, and there is certainly no unified “European academic job market” with unified rules.
Figure 1 Academic Wages in Europe and the United States, 2007
Source: Berkhout et al. Reference Berkhout, Biermans, Salverda and Tijdens2007, 4.
Against this common background, there are two important dimensions that can be used to differentiate the organization of European academic jobs markets (see, e.g. Marimon, Lietaert, and Grigolo Reference Marimon, Lietaert and Grigolo2009). Footnote 2 The first is the extent to which access to the academic profession is limited by national (or local) barriers to entry for outsiders, for example applicants with a doctoral degree from other countries. Formally, these barriers include bureaucratic systems of accreditation that require applicants to be “certified” to apply for academic jobs (in France or Spain), supplementary qualifications to access permanent positions (the Habilitation in Germany or Austria, basically a second doctoral dissertation). Informally, they commonly include various forms of non-competitive endogamous recruitment (common in southern Europe), besides language requirements. Footnote 3
The second dimension is the extent to which stable positions are available for doctoral graduates (similar to the tenure-track system), or whether permanent positions are limited to professorships at the top of the academic hierarchy, with a potentially long period of insecure employment following the PhD (common in Germany). In other words, this corresponds to whether career progression happens through the internal (within the same institution) or the external labor market (by applying for other jobs) (Musselin Reference Musselin2005). Drawing on this, it is possible to draw a four-type typology: a) open countries with job security for entrants (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Scandinavia), b) open countries with low security for entrants (Switzerland), c) closed countries with high security (France, Spain, Italy) and d) closed countries with little security (Germany). See table 1.
Table 1 Typology of Academic Labor Markets in Europe
Open and secure systems: UK, the Netherlands, Scandinavia
The United Kingdom is the largest and one of the most open academic job markets in Europe. In 2013–3014, there were 194,000 academic employees in the United Kingdom, 25% of whom were foreigners (Higher Education Statistics Agency 2014). In a survey of researchers in economics, sociology and political science conducted by Marimon et al. (Reference Marimon, Guardiancich, Mariathasan and Rossi2011), 48% of UK-based respondents were not British, even if we do not possess data on where they obtained their doctoral degree. British academia is an attractive destination for international scholars for a number of reasons. English makes it easier for foreign academics to access teaching and research positions. Moreover, the British system provides permanent entry-level positions with good levels of job security and transparent prospects of career progression. Academic ranks range from lecturer (assistant professor) to senior lecturer and reader (associate professor) to professor. In 2013–2014, 64% of British academics were employed on open-ended contracts (Higher Education Statistics Agency 2014). This, however, did not include PhD students. Unlike the US, where the possibility that tenure is denied is a serious possibility, the stabilization of employment contracts for lecturers in British universities is a more routine process. When hired, the prospect for a lecturer passing probation is almost certain aside from major professional failings.
Another factor that makes the UK an open market for foreign academics is a system of funding that partly ties the income of universities to research performance, thereby making non-competitive appointments costlier. British universities are evaluated at regular intervals on the basis of the publications and—to a lesser extent—the “societal impact” of their employees in what is currently called the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Because of its financial consequences, this provides incentives for departments to hire scholars with a competitive publication record. This has made the transition from the PhD to a permanent job more difficult, as there is often a clear discrepancy between the profile of PhD graduates and the profile required for permanent positions, creating a gap filled by international applicants. PhD programs in political science in the United Kingdom are usually less structured than their US equivalents, especially when it comes to methods training. The introduction of a different system of funding with more emphasis on teaching quality (a so-called Teaching Excellence Framework) announced in summer 2015 may change this system of incentives, even if it is difficult to predict in which direction.
Unlike other countries where salary scales are centralized, British universities have some leeway in wage-setting, especially for senior positions. This explains the greater wage differentials between academic ranks (figure 1). Wages in London and more prestigious institutions tend to be higher, even if this is largely offset by much higher costs of living in the capital. Outside this relatively regulated and secure career path, however, many universities have sought, like elsewhere, to expand their workforce via flexible terms of employment. Many departments resort to a growing extent to fixed-term contracts (teaching fellowships), and there have been report of the use of so called “zero-hour” contracts with similar conditions as part-time teaching staff in the United States (The Guardian 2013).
The Netherlands is another country where the academic job market is fairly open and where entry-level positions are characterized by reasonable levels of job security. Forty percent of social scientists based in the Netherlands who answered Marimon et al.’s (Reference Marimon, Guardiancich, Mariathasan and Rossi2011) survey reported a foreign nationality. First, teaching in English is possible at most universities. Most tertiary institutions have MA programs in English, and a number of institutions (Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Maastricht) have started Liberal Arts-style BA degrees with a political science component taught in English. The Dutch higher education sector is competitive internationally, with good rankings for political science in particular. For instance, 8 of the 12 Dutch universities were in the Times Higher Education ranking of the best 100 universities for social sciences. A commitment to be able to teach in Dutch (at the BA level), usually after two years, is a common requirement for entry-level appointments, however. Dutch is then a requirement for higher positions (universitair hoofddocent – associate professor and hoogleraar – professor). Career progression is usually less transparent than in the UK. Compared to Germany, for instance, levels of job security for junior faculty are typically higher. Employment conditions and salary scales are set by one national collective bargaining agreement, and there is therefore little leeway for universities to negotiate individual salaries (Jongbloed Reference Jongbloed and Altbach2012). Funding opportunities for research (from the NWO) make it possible to reduce teaching loads significantly. Generous tax rebates are also available for international staff. In spite of this fairly open and transparent labor market, gender biases are fairly pronounced, with only 17% of women among full professors (De Volkskrant Reference De Volkskrant2015).
Other countries which can be classified in the open and secure category are Scandinavian countries, notably Denmark, Sweden and Norway (Finland being more closed). In these countries, entry-level positions are usually permanent and enjoy a civil servant status. However, requirements to teach in the local language usually limit the attractiveness of positions in these countries, and local contacts seem to play a more important role than in Great Britain and the Netherlands.
Open and insecure: Switzerland
Switzerland’s academic labor market shares many similarities with the German system, but it is significantly more open (Felli, Goastellec, and Leresche Reference Felli, Goastellec and Leresche2007). Indeed, data from the European tertiary education register indicates that nearly half of all academics employed in Swiss universities in 2012 did not have Swiss citizenship. For political science, a study from the 1990s indicated that 40% of full professors had another nationality at birth (Armingeon Reference Armingeon1997), and this proportion has certainly increased. Internationally attractive salaries make Switzerland one of the only countries that can compete with US first-tier institutions in spite of their public status and rigid salary scales. Footnote 4 Universities also enjoy a very good reputation in international rankings. A large percentage of international staff come from neighboring countries: primarily Germany, France, and Italy. This mainly relates to language requirements for most teaching-related activities. In spite of this, however, entry-level positions are characterized by a fairly low level of job security. The Swiss university system is decentralized and employment conditions vary between cantons. In French-speaking Switzerland, permanent positions exist below the rank of professor (maître d’enseignement et de recherche). In German-speaking universities, however, entry- and middle level positions are essentially on fixed-term contracts, similar to the German system. Tenure-track positions, however, are becoming more common. Internal recruitment is still widespread in a number of institutions.
Closed and secure systems: France, Spain, Italy
Academic labor markets in France, Spain, and Italy are characterized by high barriers to entry for outsiders (not necessarily to non-nationals, but to doctoral graduates from other countries) and highly regulated labor markets. The most common obstacle to internationalization is the prevalence of endogamous recruitment based on contacts rather than research or teaching performance, besides centralized systems of “accreditation” designed to control the labor supply by insiders. An interesting paradox is that this system of national quality control originally devised to limit endogamy, often acts as a bureaucratic barrier for outsiders, and does not really prevent local and endogamous recruitment.
In France, for instance, potential candidates for entry-level positions (maître de conférences) need to go through a process of “qualification” by a committee of French academics, with different modalities across disciplines. This takes place once a year in the fall and aims at assessing whether candidates have a strong enough profile to apply for permanent posts. Applicants who have not obtained qualification beforehand will not be considered for job openings. In theory, the system was designed to ensure homogeneous standards and prevent purely local recruitment. In practice, however, this system potentially rules out external applicants who are not familiar with French academic bureaucracy. In political science, for instance, PhD theses and articles written in English need to be accompanied by extensive summaries in French in order to be considered for qualification even before actual job offers are made public. This is aimed at proving the ability of applicants to master the language of instruction (Conseil National des Universités 2014). For professorships in political science (and law, economics, and management), there is a national competition called the Agrégation. Over a period of six months, applicants are assessed, interviewed and ranked by a national jury, and depending on their ranking, can choose from a set of available positions at universities. Again, these procedures contribute to a great degree of closure of the market to international applicants. This does not necessarily mean that it excludes applicants with a foreign nationality (the share of foreign citizens in university posts in social sciences is actually fairly high, at 31% (Marimon et al. Reference Marimon, Guardiancich, Mariathasan and Rossi2011)—but certainly of holders of a PhD acquired abroad. In spite of these centralized procedures supposed to prevent it, endogamy is still very prevalent. Godechot and Louvet (Reference Godechot and Louvet2008) show for instance that local applicants are 18 times more likely to obtain a position than external applicants. For political science, these odds were even higher: 71% of recruited applicants were local, and local applicants were 32 times more likely to be hired than external applicants.
Once these (high) barriers are overcome, however, French academics are civil servants and enjoy relatively high levels of job security in the two broad types of permanent academic posts (maître de conférences and professeur), even if salaries are relatively modest in international comparison. Outside this protected core labor market, however, parallel tracks are developing, both at the top and at the bottom. On the one hand, there has been a movement of dualization of the labor market characterized by the increase in fixed-term positions (ATER-Attaché Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche), especially in the early 2000s. This movement has been scaled down in the recent period, contributing to a decrease in the total size of academic personnel. On the other hand, some private and elite institutions such as Sciences Po in Paris have started to hire foreign scholars on private law contracts to overcome the constraints set by the French public service. It should also be noted that France has a dual system dissociating teaching and research, with a fairly large number of research-only positions within the CNRS.
The most common obstacle to internationalization is the prevalence of endogamous recruitment based on contacts rather than research or teaching performance, besides centralized systems of “accreditation” designed to control the labor supply by insiders
Spain has a relatively similar system of control of the labor supply whereby applicants to academic positions need to be accredited by a central agency called ANECA. Holders of foreign PhDs need to be “validated.” This is also the case for fixed-term entry-level positions. However, the level of control of the national level over the local level is weaker than in France, and the overwhelming majority of hires are the result of internal or local recruitments, which also makes jobs weakly accessible for outsiders. Reports from the Spanish Ministry of Education indicate for instance that 73% of all faculty obtained their PhD at the university where they are appointed, and 95% of professors obtaining new positions already had a position in the same institution (El Pais Reference El Pais2014). This contributes to the closure of Spanish academia to the outside: data form the tertiary education register indicated that only 2.2% of Spanish academic staff were not Spanish. Appointments still often work through sponsorship and log-rolling by senior academics in appointment committees. In this context where contacts often matter more than research or teaching quality, exile is often the only option for young internationally-oriented Spanish academics. Substantial spending cuts in higher education in the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis have significantly added to this situation. Behind these barriers, employment is relatively secure even if, again, salaries are relatively low by international standards. Similarly, to France, however, a number of institutions in Barcelona and Madrid stand out through their more international and competitive outlook.
Italy shares many commonalities with Spain, with a strong prevalence of local, often non-competitive recruitment and closure to the outside in many universities. Connections, and sometimes even family ties, seem to play an important role in recruitment (Durante, Lbartino, and Perotti Reference Durante, Labartino and Perotti2011). Besides this, the profession is characterized by a clearly aging workforce, and prospects for entry for younger staff are severely undermined by grim prospects for university funding. There are three types of permanent functions in Italian universities, namely ricercatore (equivalent to assistant professor, but which can be conserved throughout a career), associate, and full professor. The average age of academics in these positions was 46, 53, and 59 respectively in 2013, pointing also to a clear problem of renewal (ANVUR 2014). Recent media coverage showed for instance that there were only six professors under 40 among the 13,000 full professors in Italian universities (L’Espresso Reference L’Espresso2015). The movement of casualization observed elsewhere has also happened, as the share of non-permanent academic staff increased from 23% in 2008 to 33% in 2013. Only 1% were foreign (ANVUR 2014). However, a new law passed in 2010 also introduced a mechanism similar to a tenure-track path and placed more emphasis on performance rather than seniority alone in career progression (Rebora and Capano Reference Rebora, Capano and Altbach2012).
Closed and insecure: Germany
Germany stands out in European academia as the system where the insider-outsider has been the most institutionalized (Musselin Reference Musselin2005). The German academic labor market is clearly divided between two groups. On the one hand, full professors have civil servants’ contracts and enjoy high levels of job security. On the other hand, all other types of teaching and research staff (Mittelbau) have fixed-term contracts and work under the patronage of professors. Fixed-term employment tends to be the rule for most academics (as scientific staff, Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter) until they can obtain a professorship, usually in their 40s. In the 1990s, the average duration between the doctorate and the first professorship in political science was nearly 13 years, with a steady increasing trend (Arendes and Buchstein Reference Arendes and Buchstein2004). This insecurity is not accompanied by such a great degree of openness as in Switzerland, even if the job market is clearly more open than in southern European countries. Indeed, there is certainly a much greater level of mobility across universities within the country, partly because promotion can only happen through the external labor market (internal promotions are not possible). However, besides language barriers, the importance of the Habilitation—a second, more advanced PhD degree—for access to professorships still acts as a barrier for international candidates. In the 1990s, only 5% of political science professors in German universities held the citizenship of another country at birth (Armingeon Reference Armingeon1997). For academic staff in all disciplines, the figure is about 12% according to the European Tertiary Education Register.
These strong patterns of dualization may have worsened in recent years. A number of Länder (states) and the federal government have made massive investments in time-limited research programs resulting in larger numbers of PhD graduates, but have not committed the financial resources to create the corresponding number of permanent positions, creating a clear bottleneck in the post-PhD phase. There have been, however, a number of changes to try to temper the precariousness of entry-level positions. For instance, a number of junior professorships have been created for recent PhD which confer higher levels of autonomy vis-à-vis full professors. However, many of them are also fixed-term, and debates about the establishment of a real tenure-track system are still ongoing (Die Zeit Reference Die Zeit2015).
CONCLUSION
In this article, I have sought to outline a number of characteristics of academic labor markets in European countries, showing how patterns of dualization have been mediated by different organizational features. As such, it is difficult to speak of one European labor market in the light of the striking differences in terms of access and career progression across countries, notably between the internationalized markets of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and the closed systems of France, Spain, and Italy. However, these institutional difference also foster a fairly high level of mobility across borders, mainly from closed and insecure countries to open ones. For instance, the United Kingdom has been a destination of choice for recent German doctoral graduates given the absence of permanent positions at the entry level in their home country. Given the privileged position of professors in Germany, however, it may become attractive to return there later in their career. Hence, the patterns of internal segmentation and openness outlined here are clearly interconnected.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Camille Bedock, Romain Felli Thomas Paster, David Skarbek, Daniel Stockemer, Guillem Vidal and one anonymous reader for useful feedback and information on the article. All errors are mine.
