Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Higher education is undergoing a shift, like many industries. Some analysts have termed this changing economic reality the “gig economy”. One would expect this realty to inform research on job satisfaction in academia. However, even as the percentage of contingent faculty in the US has reached over 50%, the majority of research on the academic labor force continues to focus on tenured and tenure-track faculty. It is an empirical question whether these same trends extend to contingent faculty (and in particular, to part-time faculty). This investigation seeks to contribute to the literature in three important ways. First, its main focus is on contingent faculty, specifically part-time faculty. This focus on tenure/tenure-track faculty (or even full-time faculty) is at odds with the reality of the changing academic workforce. Any comprehensive understanding of the workforce must pay attention to part-time faculty as well as full-time faculty. Second, this study focuses on one institutional context using data collected at a public university in the western United States. Finally, this study adds to the discussion about the gig economy and the different type of workers that occupy the space. It seeks to answer the question of whether adjunct faculty look more like independent gig workers (workers who are their own boss) or contingent gig workers (who are not their own boss and are instead regular employees lacking some of the advantages of a traditional job such as security and benefits).