A precarious presence - preprint - Some realities and challenges of academic casualisation in Australian universities

Oct 15, 2026

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A precarious presence explores the realities and challenges of academic casualisation in Australian universities through secondary sources and direct encounters with casual academic staff. It focuses on the precarious nature of casual employment and how this shape engagement with academics in more secure roles and their institutions. The discussion highlights widespread desire for more integrally involved work, secure career pathways, and measurable workforce inclusion.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Casualisation in the university sector

Workforce size estimates and limitations

Problems with accurate data collection

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W A precarious presence Some realities and challenges of academic casualisationin Australian universities Maarten Rothengatter Southern Cross University Richard Hil Griffith University Drawing on various secondary sources and direct encounters with casual academic staff, this article examines the emergent context and lived experiences of casualisation in Australian universities, with specific reference to on-going developments in teaching arrangements across the sector. Particular attention is paid to the challenges associated with the ‘precarious’ nature of casual employment and what this means in terms of engagement with academics in more secure forms of employment and their respective institutions more generally. The article concludes by inviting continuing academics to reconsider both how they think about and engage with large scale casualisationin their midst, and what this might mean from an activist standpoint that views such employment arrangements as disempowering and iniquitous. Introduction Over recent years, casual academic employees have been disparagingly referred to as domestic servants, indentured labourers, army reserves, workhorses and even slaves (see Matchett, 2008) . Many senior university academics and administrators, on the other hand, like to consider casuals (publicly, at least) as a new post-industrial breed of flexible, choice-rich, adaptable personnel, capable of multitasking and happy to remain in the margins of university life. Within the sector itself, casualisation is considered as something of a ‘dirty secret’whereby – as one of our colleagues put it:‘everyone knows it’s going on, but we really don’t like to talk about it.’ Casuals, of course, see themselves and the world of work in a little different light. Numerous surveys indicate that casual academic staff would like to be more integrally involved in university affairs; generally prefer secure employment; and would appreciate the opportunity of embarking on a genuine academic career path. Most casuals want more secure and less precarious jobs, either as permanent or part-time members of staff. They do not want to feel, as many do, like expendable flotsam on turbulent institutional waters dictated by the vagaries of supply and demand and cost-cutting practices (Coates, Dobson,Edwards,Friedman,Goedegebuure & Meek,2009; Junor, 2004) . The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU, 2012) recently estimated, on the basis of a simple head count, the aggregate number of casual academic employees in Australian universities at around 67,000; or 9,265 ‘units’when calculated in terms of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. Of this population, 57 per cent are women, most of whom struggle to balance various domestic and professional demands on their time. Additionally, casuals undertake most of the more demanding areas of teaching with more than 50 per cent of all undergraduate teaching performed by casual staff (May, Strachan, Broadbent & Peetz, 2011) . Such statistics are, however, only crude indicators of the casual academic workforce. There are two significant vol. 55, no. 2, 2013 A precarious presence, Maarten Rothengatter & Richard Hil 51 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W problems with obtaining accurate data in respect of this particular group of university employees. The first concerns the ways in which Australia’s universities record and report numbers of casual staff. Invariably, such tallies derive from FTE calculations that are sent annually to the university statistics section of the designated Commonwealth Government department (Bexley, James & Arkoudis, 2011; cf. Coates & Goedegebuure, 2010). Although the eventual findings convey general data, they do not allow for a clear picture in relation to how many casual staff actually work in universities at any given time and, set against the turnover of casuals and employees on fixed-term t

FAQs

What does the article examine about casualisation in Australian universities?

It examines the emergent context and lived experiences of casualisation in Australian universities, with attention to developments in teaching arrangements across the sector.

Why is casual employment described as ‘precarious’ and what are its implications?

The article highlights challenges tied to the ‘precarious’ nature of casual work, including how it affects engagement with more secure academic colleagues and institutions.

What difficulties arise when estimating the number of casual academic employees?

The article notes crude indicators and two main problems: reliance on FTE-based reporting and incomplete or inaccurate record keeping, including cases where staff remain on books or records are discarded.

Oct 15, 2026

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