Patterns of casual academic employment in Australian higher education
The use of casual contract employment has become a prominent feature in higher education institutions worldwide, including the growth of adjunct roles in the United States and fixed-term teaching staff positions in the UK.
In Australia, this trend has been a subject of significant controversy and national attention in recent years, as casual academic employees often fulfill core duties with less job security and remuneration than their ongoing counterparts. Concerns have been raised by policymakers, unions, and academic managers about the long-term ramifications of high levels of casualisation, including the potential impact on teaching quality, workforce sustainability, underpayment, and illegal work practices. A particular concern is the existence of a "precariat" – academics seeking stable employment but finding only casual options, working close to full-time hours over many years. Despite the significance of casual employees in the Australian higher education workforce, there is a lack of systematic evidence on the prevalence of these "permanent casuals." This is due to the inconsistent data published by universities on the actual number of individual casual staff employed and their characteristics.
To address this lack of granular and systematic analysis, this study examines academic casual employment at five universities during a single year (2021), aiming to understand the different patterns and characteristics of casual employment in Australian universities and determine whether there is a "typical" academic casual employee. The analysis of anonymised payroll data reveals that there is no dominant stereotype of a casual academic employee, but rather there are distinct patterns differentiating various types of academic staff members based on their characteristics.
The key differentiator appears to be the number of years employed at a university, as well as the discipline in which academics undertake casual work. Age grouping and possession of a doctoral degree are less significant factors explaining differences in employment patterns within the sample.
On average, the casual employees in the sample were paid for 189 hours over the year, roughly equivalent to one full day per fortnight (0.1 FTE). However, the majority of casuals were paid for fewer hours than this, with over half of the casual academics at three universities analysed being paid for less than three weeks (full-time equivalent) in 2021. It is important to note that the sample data cannot reveal whether casual academics work at multiple universities, suggesting that significant hours worked by an individual may be more common than the sample suggests.
At one university, casuals had engagements working for more than one department, and the sample data suggests that, on average, those who have been employed for a longer period work a higher number of casual hours for all activities. Institutions with higher numbers of younger casuals also had larger numbers of higher degree research students, implying that many casuals are also students. While the majority of casual academics work relatively few hours, there are small cohorts working large numbers of hours, with around 5% of the casual academic workforce at one university engaged in teaching and teaching-related duties exceeding the maximum teaching load for Teaching only academic staff prescribed by the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA). Casual staff in Business and Economics and Arts are more likely to work the equivalent or greater hours than the maximum teaching load, although the numbers are small.
The differentiation in employment patterns and activity types likely stems from differences in discipline/faculty practices. For example, a detailed analysis shows longer-term teaching academics in Business and Economics and Arts, while shorter-tenure staff were employed elsewhere. The cluster analysis in the final section provides useful examples of this differentiation, and that age and qualification were not significantly associated with nature and frequency of casual academic work. Overall, this study emphasises the complexity around casual academic employment in Australia, and suggests many generalisations about widespread ‘casualisation’, both positive and negative, are likely inaccurate.
