Between luck and stigma: gendered experiences of precarity in higher education in the UK and the US

ABSTRACT

Through a phenomenological research design, this study explores experiences of precarity among early-career academics in the UK and the USA higher education sectors. These contexts, while similar, exhibit structural differences as pioneers of neoliberalization in the Global North. Conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 early-career academics in both contexts, the study delves into shared and distinct experiences of precarity, manifesting in unstable working conditions, uncertain futures, and competitive job markets dominated by temporary positions. The findings illuminate the role of emotions and gendered experiences in navigating precarity. Accordingly, informants in both contexts expressed being lucky to have academic positions even when they are temporary ones embedded in gendered hierarchies, while informants in the USA further highlighted being stigmatized. The study argues that the experiences of precarity unsettle meritocratic ideals in both cases, whereby individual success and achievements become irrelevant and excluded, and gendered inequalities are overshadowed.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarity
• higher education
• gender
• luck
• stigma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2024.2383217

Notes

1. The research design originated during the 2019–2020 pandemic lockdown when there were no established requirements or mechanisms for ethics committee approval at the authors’ institutions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Canan Neşe Kınıkoğlu

Canan Neşe Kınıkoğlu is an assistant professor at Istanbul Medeniyet University. She received her Ph.D. degree in sociology from the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include gender, sociology of education, sociology of work, nationalism, and memory studies.

Aysegul Can

Aysegul Can is a postdoctoral researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany in the Institute of Regional Studies. She received her PhD in urban studies from the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include gentrification, housing policy, urban resistance movements, social injustice in marginalized areas, and precariousness and gender in higher education