Despite the diversity of entry points into academia, little research exists examining the experiences and impact of precarious employment at different life stages. Drawing on interviews with 19 academics employed casually or on fixed-term contracts in Australian universities, this paper illustrates how precarious employment is experienced at…

Young people in theory have a world filled with opportunity and longer lives to enjoy it. But for too many these opportunities are out of reach. Educational attainment is increasingly central to life chances, but more dependent on family background here than in other countries. Rises in insecure work along with stalled pay risk further divides…

This article reports on research initiated by the trade union for lecturers and researchers in the UK, the University and College Union (UCU), which examined the pressures, concerns and positive aspects of being a member of research staff at one UK university. The findings are presented from the premise that university researchers are caught…