Diversification in the Academic Workforce: The Case of the US and Implications for Europe

This paper examines two broad dimensions of change in the American academic profession: (1) demographic and generational change, including increasing feminization, changing attitudes toward the career-family balance, migration of faculty positions to the professions (versus the liberal arts) and away from the research university sector; and (2) changes in types of appointments, work and career tracks, including the decline of tenure and the rise of fixed term appointments, which involve more ‘specialized’ and less ‘place-bound’ work roles and alternative career tracks. It considers these changes more broadly in the context of the changing nature of work in a globalized economy and the changing nature of the knowledge industry and in the context of similar developments in Europe and Asia. It concludes with an extrapolation of how these trends are likely to play out in the US context and in a new ‘globalized’ academic marketplace over the next 10–20 years.