Abstract
Gender inequality within the university is well documented but proposals to tackle it tend to focus on the higher ranks, ignoring how it manifests within precarious work. Based on data collected as part of a broader participatory action research project on casual academic labour in Irish higher education, the article focuses on the intersection of precarious work and gender in academia. We argue that precarious female academics are non-citizens of the academy, a status that is reproduced through exploitative gendered practices and evident in formal/legal recognition (staff status, rights and entitlements, pay and valuing of work) as well as in informal dimensions (social and decision-making power). We, therefore, conclude that any attempts to challenge gender inequality in academia must look downward, not upward, to the ranks of the precarious academics.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 463-479 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Gender, Work and Organization |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 29 Jan 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2019 |
Keywords
- academia
- citizenship
- gender
- housework
- inequality
- precarity
- work
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Gender Studies
- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Access to Document
- Not one of the family - accepted version
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Okeefe, T and Courtois, A., 2019. ‘Not one of the family’: Gender and precarious work in the neoliberal university. Gender, work and organization. , which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.12346. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
