Varieties of Academic Labour Markets in Europe

I have been asked to write a short piece for PS: Political Science and Politics on academic labour markets in Europe. This should be a longer, updated and more “respectable” version of the “drug gangs” piece. A draft of this piece is here. The article tries to give a short overview on the organisation of academic labour markets in Europe and how they are affected by dualisation. Here the abstract and typology I use.

Abstract. This article provides a comparative overview of academic labor markets in European countries, paying particular attention to the market for political scientists. After outlining some structural developments, it reviews the organization of academic labor markets in a number of countries by using a typology based on two dimensions. First, the article differentiates between countries where access for outsiders is open or constrained by formal and informal barriers to entry. Second, it differentiates between countries where permanent contracts are available to recent PhD graduates, and those where permanent positions are confined to the top of the academic hierarchy, and where the bulk of the academic workforce is on fixed-term contracts. The increasing segmentation of academic jobs markets (between permanent and fixed-term contracts) is emphasized as an overarching trend across countries.