academic work in canada: the perceptions of early-career academics

Academic Work in Canada: thePerceptions of Early-CareerAcademicshequ_515 189..206

Glen Jones, University of Toronto, [email protected] Weinrib, University of Toronto, [email protected] Scott Metcalfe, University of British Columbia,[email protected] Fisher, University of British Columbia,[email protected] Rubenson, University of British Columbia,[email protected] Iain Snee, University of British Columbia,[email protected]

Abstract

This paper analyses junior academic staff’s (assistant professors) perceptions ofacademic work in a highly decentralised Canadian ‘system’.Drawing on recentwork by the authors on Canadian university tenure processes and remunera-tion, the paper compares the perceptions of assistant professor respondents withsenior (associate full professor) peers to the Canadian component of the Chang-ing Academic Professions (CAP) survey. The analysis suggests that junioracademic staff perceive the academic workplace as reasonably positive andsupportive. In addition to relatively high levels of satisfaction, institutionalsupport and remuneration, the findings suggest that there are minimal sub-stantive differences in levels of work and work patterns between junior and moresenior academic staff, a finding at odds with the general literature and commonsentiment, which suggests junior staff work longer hours.The differences that doemerge appear to be more modest and nuanced than is popularly characterised.

Introduction

In 2007–2008 Canadian universities employed around 40,000 full-timeacademic staff (henceforth referred to as faculty). Approximately 68 percent of all full-time faculty were in tenure-stream appointments, with just

Higher Education Quarterly, 0951–5224DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2273.2012.00515.xVolume 66, No. 2, April 2012, pp 189–206

© 2012 The Authors. Higher Education Quarterly © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

over 19,100 (48 per cent) holding tenure and 7,800 (20 per cent) inpre-tenure appointments (Canadian Association of University Teachers,2010).Thirty-two per cent of all full-time faculty (just over 12,900) heldappointments that were not tenure-stream.This fact, combined with thegrowth of sessional, part-time and other contractual teaching appoint-ments at Canadian universities (Rajagopal, 2002), has led many ob-servers to conclude that there has been an increasing fragmentationand differentiation of academic work between employee groups(Muzzin, 2009) and that the academic workplace is changing in responseto the existence of new categories of employment, increasing student–faculty ratios, decreasing government support and new investmentscombined with increasing expectations in research (Jones, 2007). Whilethere is considerable agreement on the marginalisation of sessional orcontract university teachers, relatively little is known about the experi-ences and perceptions of full-time, tenure-stream faculty, especially theperceptions of early-career faculty who may be struggling to obtaintenure in this changing environment.

The objective in this paper is to provide a brief review of key contex-tual features of the academic workplace in Canadian universities, relatethese features to the shifting global contexts and conditions of academicwork and then, drawing on a national survey of Canadian universityfaculty collected for the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) project,compare the perceptions reported by early-career faculty with their moresenior peers. This analysis situates the Canadian case within a broaderinternational context in order to test assumptions in the literature thatjunior and senior faculty members are experiencing changes in universitygovernance and support in radically different ways.

The major findings are twofold: Canadian full-time tenure streamfaculty members, regardless of rank, are operating under good, if notquite favourable, working conditions; and despite rhetoric and evidenceindicating a divergence in responsibilities and pressures between juniorand senior ranking faculty in the broader international literature, thelimited differences reported in the CAP survey between junior andsenior faculty in Canada appear to counter the predominant narrative.

Academic work in an international context

One of the major catalysts for this paper is the need to gain a betterunderstanding of how 21st century conditions and pressures are influ-encing the experiences of Canadian academics within the academicworkplace and how academics are in turn conceptualising the stateof the profession. While this study is grounded in the Canadian

190 Higher Education Quarterly

© 2012 The Authors. Higher Education Quarterly © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

context, the authors recognise that national systems are embedded inparticular historical traditions with highly contextualised developmen-tal trajectories.

There are three major global trends that help to situate this study’sanalysis of junior faculty in the Canadian jurisdiction: the increasingdifferentiation of national post-secondary systems and institutions and,as a result, their academic workforces; the introduction of staff man-agement techniques and system-wide accountability frameworks; andlastly, the current and impending demographic shifts in the academiclabour forces of many Western jurisdictions. The intersection of thesecommon realities and their manifestation in universities and theirnational systems are of great significance to the context of early-careeracademics, as they represent the significant structural and environmen-tal conditions that currently determine the conditions under whichnew faculty members are entering the academy and subsisting withinthe academic profession.

Issues of system-wide and institutional differentiation have beenengaged by higher education scholars for close to 40 years, primarilystemming from the works of Clark (1983, 1987, 1997) and Trow (1972)and their analyses of post-war massification processes and the subse-quent impacts on Western higher education systems. While the majorityof OECD countries achieved massification over the latter parts of thetwentieth century, the recent forces of globalisation and regionalisationare ‘encouraging a much finer and more flexible differentiation of insti-tutions which may well lead to greater volatility and fuzziness withinand across systems’ (Enders and Musselin, 2008, p. 131). Primarily inresponse to changing economic conditions, national governments areincreasingly managing and dividing institutions according to more spe-cialised functions (Finkelstein, 2010, p. 141).The impact of this new setof differentiation processes is the dichotomisation of ‘have’ and ‘have not’institutions, with corresponding hierarchies of academic professionalsbeing established within and between the various layers of nationalsystems and international régimes.

In the United States (US), Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) andAustralia, the most glaring manifestation of this differentiation is thefragmentation of a historically homogenous academic workforce intofull-time and contingent labour groups, operating under radically diver-gent employment frameworks and conditions (Court, 1998; Finkelstein,2003, 2010; Hugo, 2005a, b, c). Some individual case studies bear thisout: Ehrenberg et al. (2005) concluded that the percentage of part-timeand full-time non-tenured positions in the United States rose from about

Early-career Faculty in Canada 191


43 per cent in 1975 to 64 per cent in 2003; and Robinson (2005) foundthat in Australia, the number of casual positions had more than doubledbetween 1990 and 2001, while in the UK fixed-term staff had risen from39 to 45 per cent between 1994 and 2003, while part-time staff rose from12 to 18 per cent in the same time period. As can be expected, thesechanges are not restricted to the Anglophone world and are played out inother jurisdictions. In their examination of academic working conditionsin five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway and theUK) using the CAP data, Cavalli and Moscati (2010) concluded that thegrowing diversification of professional activity has resulted in the reduc-tion of tenured and tenure track positions, a growing number of fixed-term contracts for both teaching and research and a growing uncertaintyamongst academics regarding long-term stability, all of which hasresulted in decreased dissatisfaction amongst faculty members in the fivenations.This emerging hierarchy amongst academic staff is compoundedby long-term downward trends in academic salaries within some coun-tries (Robinson, 2005). As Finkelstein contends, ‘the notion of academ-ics as a “cohesive group” united by a common pre-service socialisationexperience will become increasingly limited in its application to a shrink-ing core’ (Finkelstein, 2010, p. 153).

The second major global trend impacting on the academic professionis the well-documented rise of managerialism and régimes of account-ability within and across national post-secondary systems (Slaughter andLeslie, 1997; Olssen and Peters, 2005). This trend is associated withincreased top-down prioritisation of teaching and research loads, includ-ing the steering and control of previously autonomous professionalagendas, increased pressure for quasi-entrepreneurial activities in rela-tion to academics acquiring their own research funding and shiftingconceptions of ‘relevance’ in regard to the relationship between post-secondary education and society (Enders and Musselin, 2008). The‘assessment’ régime implemented in the UK is perhaps the most wellknown but other nations are experiencing similar, if slightly morenuanced, forms of managerialism. In Germany, a merit-based compo-nent was introduced into the salary formula of new professors, while overthe past 15 years France has implemented mandatory teaching andresearch evaluation protocols for all faculty members working in publicuniversities, under the supervision of a national agency (Enders andMusselin, 2008, pp. 136–140). The cumulative impact of these changeson the academic profession is the conceptualisation of post-secondaryteachers and researchers less as career scholars and more as ‘managedprofessionals’ or ‘academic workers’ (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997; Finkel-



stein, 2003; Enders and Musselin, 2008). The impact of these shifts onacademic workloads varies by country but general hypotheses indicatethat individuals are working harder and more than ever before and aresubject to increased expectations regarding publication and teachingperformance (Finkelstein, 2010), resulting in an organisational ‘narrativeof constraint’ (O’Meara et al., 2008, p. 16) where more must always bedone with less.

The final contextual piece impacting on many OECD countries withmature higher education systems are the demographic shifts occurringwithin the academic workforce in both gender and age. Regarding theformer, there is evidence that many mature systems are witnessing asignificant shift in the gender make-up of their academic labour force,both in cumulative numbers and according to rank, though increases infemale representation at more senior positions are taking place at muchslower rates (Enders and Musselin, 2008). With respect to age, Endersand Musselin (2008, p. 130) estimate that between 40 and 60 per cent ofthe overall professoriate are older than 55 years of age and between 2008and 2018, an average of four to six per cent of the professoriate will retireeach year. The implications of this for the academic workforce in manynational systems are an increased turnover rate that can be met in one oftwo ways; either the replacement of retiring tenured and permanentfaculty with new tenure-stream and permanent positions or the retrench-ment of permanent positions in favour of a temporary and ‘more flexible’workforce. The implication for the continued feminisation of the work-force is that with a decrease in permanent positions, gains may continueto be limited in both size and scope.

Taking these trends as a whole, it appears that the academic work-place is changing and the conditions of employment and the nature ofthe academy are moving the profession away from the relatively stableconditions of the mid-to-late twentieth century. The speed at whichthese major changes are taking place also suggests that there may begenerational differences: the assumptions about research productivity,teaching loads, remuneration and benefit arrangements, opportunitiesfor permanent employment and other key workload elements may bedifferent for junior faculty than their more senior peers and there maybe related differences in perceptions of academic work and job satis-faction (Altbach, 2000). The current study begins an investigation intothe Canadian context, interpreting findings from the Changing Aca-demic Profession (CAP) survey and drawing upon broader researchinto the conditions of employment for full-time faculty across Cana-dian universities.



Academic work in Canada

Canada has a highly decentralised university ‘system’. Under Canada’sconstitution, education is the responsibility of the provinces; there is nonational ministry of education or higher education and no nationalhigher education policy or legislation. Universities are relatively autono-mous institutions operating under provincial regulation and legislation.Universities are created as private, not-for-profit corporations, thoughmost are considered public in that they receive provincial governmentoperating grants. As such, there are considerable variations in fundingmechanisms and governance structures by province (Shanahan andJones, 2007).

Professors are employees of universities and these autonomouscorporations, operating under provincial labour laws, can determinethe terms of appointment, remuneration and other conditions ofemployment. Most Canadian university faculty are unionised, in fact,Dobbie and Robinson (2008) have argued that higher education may bethe most unionised sector in Canada. Most full-time university facultyare members of institution-specific labour unions that negotiate collec-tive agreements with university management and these agreements coveremployment issues related to salaries and benefits but they also fre-quently cover key academic working conditions, including defining aca-demic freedom as a condition of employment. At many universities,other categories of university teachers, such as sessional or contractualteachers and graduate students who teach undergraduate courses arealso unionised but they are often represented by separate unions fromthose representing full-time faculty.

Two recent studies contribute to the understanding of academic workin Canada, especially the conditions of employment of early-careerfaculty. Based on the assumption that the tenure process both definesacademic work and establishes the criteria for the assessment of academicwork, Gravestock et al. (2009) conducted a detailed analysis of tenure andpromotion policies at 44 Canadian universities. Of the 44 institutionsincluded in their study, 33 had unions representing full-time faculty andthe tenure and promotion policies were wholly or partially enshrinedwithin the collective agreement. At the remaining institutions there wassome form of binding agreement between the faculty association and theuniversity that covered key conditions of employment that was similar toa collective agreement, including addressing tenure and promotion pro-cedures. In other words, tenure and promotion policies at all of theseuniversities emerged from negotiations between faculty and management.



Many elements of the tenure and promotion processes are commonacross institutions. New junior tenure-stream faculty are initiallyappointed on a probationary, pre-tenure contract. The most commonarrangement involves an initial contract of between two or three years inlength, followed by some form of probationary review and, if the candi-date is successful, the individual receives a second contract that contin-ues until the tenure review. The length of the pre-tenure probationaryperiod varies by institution but generally ranges from between three andseven years.

All universities define academic work as teaching and research,though some institutions also include service as a component of aca-demic work. At all universities included in the study, the criteria fortenure focused on the assessment of teaching and research and, whilesome institutions indicated that service was important, it was also clearthat tenure could not be obtained on the basis of service activities alone.

While tenure criteria clearly focused on teaching and research,Gravestock et al. (2009) noted significant differences in how institutionsdescribe the standards of research and teaching, including major differ-ences in the language and terminology used to describe the criteria forassessment. There may be common themes but tenure is institutionallydefined. They also found major differences in tenure review processes,including the number of committees that review the tenure dossier, therole of academic administrators and impact of a negative tenure decision;in some cases a negative tenure decision would lead to a terminalcontract, while in others the unsuccessful candidate could reapply undercertain conditions.

The second study focuses on faculty remuneration in Canadianuniversities. Jones and Weinrib (2010) analysed Statistics Canada dataon 2007–2008 faculty salaries from 52 universities.The study was part ofan international comparative project following on Rumbly et al.’s (2008)analysis of faculty member salaries that had noted that Canada had oneof the highest salaries for both junior and senior faculty members across15 countries. Jones and Weinrib found that early-career faculty continueto be well remunerated; the average salary for an assistant professor was$6,900 per month (or an annual salary of $83,136 or approximately£52,900).

The study also notes significant differences in salary levels by gender,institutional type and province. On average, across ranks, female facultyearn approximately 89 per cent of their male counterparts, though thereis evidence that this gender gap has been narrowing over time. Forfemale representation in Canada’s academic profession, 2011–2012, the



Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT, 2011, p. 16) indi-cates participation rates as follows: 36 per cent of tenured faculty, 43 percent of tenure-track faculty and 36 per cent of non-tenure track faculty.While these numbers indicate a continued underrepresentation forfemale academics, it is interesting to note that the percentage of womenin full-time non-tenure track positions has remained virtually unchangedover the last ten years, declining 0.5 per cent since 1998–1999 (CAUT,2011, p. 16). Generally speaking, salaries at institutions categorised asmedical or doctoral are higher than those at universities with a primarilyundergraduate mandate. The average salaries of assistant professorsvaried by province (between $70,200 in Newfoundland and Labradorand $87,700 in Alberta).

These two studies contribute to the understanding of academic workin Canada and the context in which early-career faculty are working.Academic work in Canada is largely defined at the institutional level butuniversities have generally defined the academic work of tenure-streamfaculty as teaching, research and, to a lesser extent, service. Tenurepolicies, which define academic work and describe the process by whichthis work is assessed in order to determine whether an individual willobtain a permanent appointment, are negotiated between representativesof the faculty and university management. Junior faculty are reasonablyremunerated, at least in comparison to their peers in many other juris-dictions and Canadian faculty obtain a range of benefits, includingsabbaticals (as an entitlement), pensions and extended healthcare.

The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey inCanada: methodology

The 2007 Changing Academic Profession Survey, covering 18 countries,was a follow-up to the 1992 Carnegie Foundation for the AdvancementofTeaching, which involved 14 countries. As Canada was not involved inthe initial 1992 survey, this marks the first time that a comprehensivenational effort has been made to accumulate data on faculty perceptionsof the academic profession in the Canadian jurisdiction. A detaileddescription of the research design and methods for the internationalCAP surveys can be found in earlier publications (Locke and Teichler,2007).

The Canadian study was designed to obtain responses from a repre-sentative sample of faculty at Canadian universities. A two-stage clustersample was created at the level of institutions and at the level ofindividuals. At the institutional level, the target population of universitieswas sorted by type of institution (medical or doctoral, comprehensive



and primarily undergraduate). A random sample of institutions wascreated from this list. The institutional sample consisted of 18institutions: 4 medical or doctoral, 6 comprehensive and 8 primarilyundergraduate. At least one institution from each of Canada’s 10 prov-inces was represented in the sample. For each of the 18 universities in thesample, full-time faculty with the titles of professor, associate professorand assistant professor were included in the individual-level clustersamples. Only full-time university faculty were surveyed.

At the end of October 2007, 6,693 potential participants were sent abilingual e-mail invitation message with an embedded link to a web-based survey. The survey was closed in mid-December, 2007. Anotherphase of the survey was initiated in April 2008 to capture more responsesand the survey was finally closed in May 2008 having obtained 1,152valid returns for a response rate of 17.21 per cent (Table 1).There are anumber of important limitations associated with the study, including amodest response rate and the reliance on self-reported survey responses,especially given the complexities of assessing perceptions.

The characteristics of the respondent population closely resemble thecharacteristics of the whole population of full-time faculty at Canadianuniversities in institutional type, rank and a number of demographiccharacteristics. Women are slightly over-represented (40.9 per cent ofrespondents compared with 32.7 per cent of full-time faculty).

This paper focuses on the reported perceptions of early-career tenure-stream faculty compared with the responses from their more seniorpeers. The analysis of data focused on the cross-tabulation of question-naire responses in order to analyse differences in response betweenearly-career and more senior career faculty. Early-career faculty weredefined as individuals holding the rank of assistant professor, andresponses from these faculty were compared with faculty at the rank ofassociate professor and professor.

Perceptions of early-career faculty

This study began with the assumption that there would be substantivedifferences in responses between early-career faculty and more seniorfaculty. Perhaps the most important finding of the subsequent analysis isthat there were in fact very few differences. The general conclusion thatcan be drawn from the Canadian data is that assistant professors gener-ally report that they operate under similar working conditions to theirmore senior colleagues and possess a relatively high level of satisfactionwith the majority of their professional responsibilities and functions.



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Concerning academic work, the survey dealt with issues relating towork situations and activities, specifically targeting the amount of worktime spent on various activities and the disposition of faculty members todifferent aspects of the profession. The authors were very interested toexamine how the work patterns of early-career faculty compared withtheir more senior colleagues, as a common trope often portrays earlyfaculty operating under more strenuous working conditions and workinglonger hours, particularly in the realm of teaching and research activities.The findings from the CAP survey appear to contradict this popularconception, with assistant-level faculty reporting a total commitment of48.4 hours, compared to 47.5 hours for their more senior colleagues.Thegreater administrative contributions of senior colleagues were balancedby less time spent on teaching-related activities (Tables 2 and 3).

The survey also examined whether there was a significant differencein desired balance between research and teaching activities across facultyranks. This question is significant because of the possibility that genera-tional differences and seniority levels may alter faculty preferences andbehaviour patterns, having been socialised into the academic professionunder relatively different social and economic conditions. However, as

TABLE 2Hours per week that junior and senior faculty reported working

during teaching terms

In session (h) Junior Senior

Teaching-related 22.4 18.9Research-related 16.3 15.7Service-related 4.0 3.8Administrative duties 5.7 9.1Total 48.4 47.5

TABLE 3Hours per week that junior and senior faculty reported working

during non-teaching terms

Out of session (h) Junior Senior

Teaching-related 6.1 5.4Research-related 30.4 26.7Service-related 3.7 4.0Administrative duties 4.9 8.0Total 45.1 44.1



with the reported levels of academic work per week, the differences in thereported preferences by faculty rank were not statistically significant.One area of work where the data does indicate a relatively significantdifference between junior and more senior faculty members is in regardsto the portion of teaching responsibilities that are devoted to under-graduate teaching. Assistant professors reported spending 71 per cent oftheir teaching time focusing on undergraduates as compared to the 61per cent reported by their senior colleagues. On the other hand, fullprofessors reported spending twice as much time on doctoral teaching(10.9 per cent compared to 5.5 per cent for junior faculty). One mightassume that these findings simply reflect developmental differenceswithin academic work and that responsibility for graduate teachingincreases as individuals transition from early to mid-career.

Another difference in work activities emerged in response to questionsrelated to outside employment. Only 24 per cent of assistant professorsreported that they had taken on other employment (such as paid con-sulting) over the two years previous to the survey date, while 31 per centof more senior faculty reported engaging in these activities.

The data also suggest that junior faculty are slightly more likely toconsider, and act on, major career changes than their more senior col-leagues, though, once again, the differences between the two groups ismodest. Asked whether they had considered a variety of career changesin the five years previous to completing the survey, 34 per cent ofassistant professors considered a change to another higher educationinstitution in Canada, 24 per cent considered higher education institu-tions outside Canada and 24 per cent considered moving to a non-highereducation or research institution position. This is compared to seniorfaculty responses, where only 27 per cent had considered a move toanother higher education institution in Canada, 18 per cent had consid-ered a higher education institution outside of Canada and 20 per centhad considered a move to a non-higher education or research institutionposition.

Satisfaction and influence

In order to understand the relationship between academic rank and thelevel of job satisfaction of Canadian academics, rank was cross-tabulatedwith responses to a series of relevant questions in the Changing Aca-demic Profession survey. Faculty at all ranks indicated a high level ofjob satisfaction, though more senior faculty indicated higher levels ofsatisfaction than early-career faculty (see also Weinrib et al., in press).Approximately 70 per cent of full professors strongly disagreed with the



statement ‘if I could do it over again I would not become an academic,’compared with 54 per cent of associate professors and 49 per cent ofassistant professors. Responding to the statement, ‘my job is a source ofconsiderable personal strain’, 20 per cent of assistant professors and 21per cent of associate professors ‘strongly agreed’, while this number fellto 14 per cent for full professors. Generally speaking, a larger share of fullprofessors reported higher levels of job satisfaction and a more positiveview of the academic profession than individuals appointed to the lowerranks, though it is interesting to note that the levels of stress reported bypre-tenure faculty are the same as the levels of stress reported by post-tenure associate professors (Table 4).

These findings are interesting but not unexpected.The study providessupport for previous findings in the literature that lower ranking profes-sors operate under more stressful working conditions, primarily dueto being embedded in ongoing professional legitimation processes(Sorcinelli, 1992; Castle and Shutz, 2002). For those who have alreadyattained the highest rank in Canadian universities, those at the fullprofessor rank, it is not unreasonable to expect that the absence of

TABLE 4Responses to faculty satisfaction questions %

Stronglyagree/agree

Neutral Disagree/strongly disagree

If I had to do it overagain, I would not becomean academic (%)

Senior 8 7 85Junior 13 15 72

This is a poor time for ayoung person to begina career . . . (%)


My job is a source ofconsiderable personalstrain (%)


Very high/high Average Low/very low

Overall satisfaction (%)Senior 73 21 7Junior 80 13 7



promotional pressures and the attainment of the highest position indepartmental hierarchies would lower overall stress levels and usher in amore favourable opinion of personal and professional circumstances.Linking this finding with the earlier note about there being limitedvariation in faculty work patterns, both while classes are and are not insession, one can tentatively conclude that qualitative conditions, in com-bination with lower levels of professional security and remuneration,most likely result in the differences in satisfaction.

For other notable observations, cross-examining rank with respon-dent perceptions of individual influence at the department, school orfaculty and institutional level, revealed some of the survey’s clearestrelationships. While most faculty members (academic staff) believe thatthey are very or somewhat influential at the department level, regardlessof rank, this perceived influence decreases at the faculty or school leveland then decreases again in reference to decisions at the institutionallevel. Full professors reported higher levels of influence at each levelcompared with both associate and assistant professors. Interestingly, themajority of assistant professors reported that they have at least someinfluence over decisions at the department level, suggesting that whilethere are clear hierarchies associated with perceived influence by rank,the decision-making arrangements at the local level provide juniorfaculty with avoice (Metcalfe et al., 2011) (Table 5).

Comparing the Canadian results to those reported by the otherAnglo-American jurisdictions participating in the CAP study reveals that

TABLE 5Faculty perceptions of influence at department/faculty/institution

levels by rank

Veryinfluential

Somewhatinfluential

A littleinfluential

Not at allinfluential

Department level (%)Full Professor 31.0 43.0 18.0 6.0Associate Professor 21.1 39.6 27.4 10.4Assistant Professor 10.8 42.0 33.2 9.8

Faculty/school level (%)Full Professor 11.5 35.4 30.6 18.5Associate Professor 6.3 23.2 39 28.3Assistant Professor 1.8 12.2 37.8 41.6

Institution level (%)Full Professor 3.7 21.4 35.1 37.4Associate Professor 2.1 8.4 29.6 56.6Assistant Professor 0.4 2.5 16.8 69.1



junior faculty members at Canadian universities have relatively highlevels of satisfaction. Over 70 per cent of all junior Canadian respondentsindicated that their overall job satisfaction was high or very high, whileparallel figures for American, Australian and British respondents were 61per cent, 53 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively.

Conclusions

While one might have expected to find significant differences in a rangeof working conditions and experiences, based on broad changes in theglobal economic and political environment, the CAP data indicate onlymodest differences in the perceptions of academic work reported byearly-career faculty compared with their more senior peers. The twogroups report similar hours of work, similar interest in relation to balanceof activity and only minor differences in how they spend their time.Junior faculty are reasonably remunerated and most are represented byfaculty unions that have negotiated tenure and promotion policies as partof the collective bargaining process. Faculty across all ranks report a highlevel of job satisfaction, though on average more senior faculty reporthigher levels of satisfaction than their junior colleagues. Generally speak-ing, the findings suggest that full-time early-career faculty in tenure-stream positions are doing well.

These findings indicate a relatively stable and healthy professionalenvironment for both junior and senior faculty in Canadian universities.However there is evidence that the global shift towards more contingentlabour is also occurring in Canada and, that as a result, a more stratifiedlabour force with significantly different employment conditions isappearing (Rajagopal, 2002). Unlike institutions in some other jurisdic-tions, Canadian universities appear to be maintaining a strong tenure-stream category of academic professionals; the total number of full-timefaculty increased by approximately 25 per cent between 2000 and 2008with increases in the tenure-stream as well as the non-tenure-streamcategories (Jones, 2011).The fact that the rate of growth of the latter washigher than the former signals a possible shift in the balance of full-timeappointments.The cost of maintaining this full-time cohort comes at theexpense of an expanding number of part-time and non-permanent con-tract workers who have very different working conditions. The implica-tions of these broad changes in the balance of academic professionals inthese quite different employment categories require further study.

These changes also raise interesting questions related to gender andacademic career patterns. There is a long history of gender inequitywithin the Canadian professoriate and, while there are indications that



the gap is narrowing, women continue to be the minority in all aca-demic ranks. For example, according to the 2010 Canadian Associa-tion of University Teachers Almanac, as of 2007, 20 per cent of fullprofessors in Canadian universities were female, compared to a 35 percent representation at the associate professor level and 43 per cent atthe assistant professor level (CAUT, 2010, p. 5). Given that the major-ity of part-time or contract faculty are women, will the growing depen-dence on casual academic labour lead to further gender imbalanceswithin the academy? Will career patterns change with growing numbersof experienced casual workers competing for fewer well-remunerated,tenure-stream positions?

A range of contextual features play a role in protecting junior facultyin Canada from some of the systemic difficulties reported in some otherjurisdictions. The decentralised nature of the Canadian system meansthat academic work (and working conditions) are largely defined at theinstitutional level and the existence of strong labour unions have playedan important role in protecting the interests of their members. Furtherresearch would help understand the experiences of early-career facultyas they navigate the rapidly changing environment of the twenty-firstcentury university.

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