Academic Work, Working Conditions and Job Satisfaction
This chapter focuses on the analysis of changing academic work, working conditions and discussion about job satisfaction related to the academics’ income in Europe. The study shows that the academic profession in Europe remains under strong pressures that
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Academic Work, Working Conditions and Job Satisfaction Marek Kwiek and Dominik Antonowicz
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Introduction
In this analysis of changing academic work, working conditions and job satisfaction in Europe, we present the academics’ assessment of facilities, resources and personnel. Subsequently, an overview will be provided about the academic workload and allocation of time between the four major types of academic activities: teaching, research, service and administration. A further section will discuss job satisfaction and academics’ income. This chapter provides a general picture of the variety of views and activities in 12 European countries, where differences between junior and senior academic staff and between academics at universities and at other higher education institutions are presented, whenever relevant. As will be shown below, the facilities and resources are predominantly assessed positively by European academics, with the least positive scores for research funding. Hence, the ratings of those at universities are more positive than of those at other higher education institutions. We also note substantial differences in the assessments of junior and senior academics. Assessments are by and large most positive in Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the Netherlands. Self-declared hours spent on academic work vary as well between European countries, between junior and senior academics and between academics at universities and academics at other higher education institutions. The longest hours spent at work in higher education institutions (when classes are in session) are reported, on average, by all academics in Ireland, Italy and Poland and the shortest in the M. Kwiek (*) Center for Public Policy Studies, Poznan University, Poznan, Poland e-mail: [email protected] D. Antonowicz Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland e-mail: [email protected] U. Teichler and E.A. Höhle (eds.), The Work Situation of the Academic Profession in Europe: Findings of a Survey in Twelve Countries, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 8, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5977-0_3, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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Netherlands, Norway and Portugal. The weekly mean time ranges from 27 h per week (junior staff in Norway) to 52 h per week (senior staff in Germany). Senior staff works longer hours than junior staff in all countries. Differences in the amount of time spent on teaching and research are striking: academics at universities spend substantial amounts of time on research, when classes are in session, in Switzerland, Norway, Germany and Austria, while substantial time is devoted to teaching in Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland and Ireland. Overall, the academic profession in Europe in the countries studied reveals relatively high levels of job satisfaction – notably in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy. They are lowest in Portugal, Ireland and the UK. In some countries, such as Germany, Italy a
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