Age–Gender Relations in the Academic Profession: Putting the Challenges of Early Career Academics Into Context

This chapter focuses on academic professions. Some initial clarifications are made between the academic profession as a whole and specific disciplinary professions. Different combinations of such professions are found in different organisations, such as universities and research institutes. We move on to examine the gendered, aged, and age-gendered features of these academic professions, including vertical and horizontal divisions. A particularly important aspect is the long time span of entry and early career, and increasingly the lack of permanent professional positions. This can mean that even very well established academics and researchers remain on temporary contracts throughout their working life, or gain a permanent position only late in their career. In many countries, especially in Europe, there is increased awareness and policy development focusing on the entry level in academic careers, including the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. This applies both at a general level and in terms of gendered dimensions. We discuss early career experiences, empirical studies of early careers in academia, and key policy developments, and how these add to the study of gender, power and professions more generally at a time of their reconfiguration in many arenas.