Hanging movers are the people who have almost fallen through the cracks of the pipeline: they hold on to proceeding in academia but are unsuccessful in obtaining paid, longer-term – let alone permanent – academic appointments and have no firm prospects in academia. The two hanging movers we iden8fied were both women. One woman had been employed at the IMAPP and the other, a Dutch woman, at the IMR.
Current situa8on Both women worked part-8me at the moment of the interview, as the only ones among the movers. Both were also working on unpaid, temporary research appointments, in contrast to the others in the sample. To gain money (and security), both had a second job: the former IMR woman had a permanent part-8me non- academic job, the former IMAPP woman gave online lectures. Both women were mothers. The combina8on of work and family life provided the women with difficul8es. They cri8cised the Dutch culture and structure on pregnancy and parental leave and costs of childcare. Both stated in the interview that having a family and care tasks are a bomle neck when it comes to building an academic career as a woman. For the IMAPP woman, finding balance was extra hard as she said, “in [my field], part-8me doesn’t exist, for the simple reason that our job is our hobby”. Their partners worked in and outside of academia.
Career trajectories The IMR woman’s trajectory was characterized by a seeming lack of long-term vision or strategy, and by prevailingly taking opportuni8es as they came via other people. As she put it herself, she “rolled into everything”. She presented her story as that the opportuni8es she had gomen so far had been external, whereas the failures throughout her trajectory were her own responsibility. AVer a disappoin8ng experience in a research project at the IMR and being disillusioned with research and wri8ng, she decided to take a non-academic job that she was offered. She leV the IMR because that new posi8on “offered tranquillity, a good salary, and a permanent contract”. She got a non-paid research posi8on at another university to keep up her publishing record. The IMR woman blamed herself for not succeeding in academia as she wanted to: “you just have to take care of yourself...I point a finger at myself...I sail too much on the waves that are there at the moment”. On the other hand, she did cri8cise the skewed parental leave facili8es in the Netherlands, and believed that women with children are disadvantaged because having children gave them less energy than men and women who had all the 8me in their hands, especially single men but also single women.
The IMAPP woman’s trajectory started off promising when an important professor in her field asked her to do a PhD, and she had mul8ple offers for a PhD to choose from, as well
as mul8ple op8ons for doing a postdoc aVer she had finished her PhD. She however chose to follow her (academic) husband’s trail and then became “linked to my husband’s contract”. This determined the rest of her career. She believed the first postdoc makes or breaks an early career scholar’s future career, and for her this was a missed opportunity. Having been in the IMAPP, she leV because there was no more money for prolonging her contract. She had felt isolated in the department, which in her eyes was unsuppor8ve toward the ‘two body problem’. She moreover talked of the masculine culture of her field in general and how resistance was happening from women within that community. Future prospects Both women were working on wri8ng papers at the 8me of the interview to keep a door to academia open and build more solid status of ar8cles. For the IMR woman, her research appointment was unsure as a new professor was coming, and due to her private situa8on. She was clearly hesitant about her near future, wondering whether to remain in academia or to “let go” and change direc8on to let (job) security be guiding, e.g. lecturing in non-academic higher educa8on. She men8oned how her husband’s career should become priority, as he had a stable and good posi8on. She saw her own career going into a ‘side road’. The IMAPP woman stated how for her, “most of the games are done”. She meant that she was too old and had a publica8on score too light to be able to compete with younger (women) scholars on the job market. Her wish for the future was to leave the Netherlands, which had disappointed her, and go to the US, where the two body problem was taken more seriously in her eyes – although she had also told about her difficul8es with her finding a job there.
In short, in the analysis of the trajectories of the hanging movers we see that both are hindered by their caring responsibili8es and both cri8cize the Dutch system of parental arrangements (with consequences for mothers par8cularly). They have a discourse of own responsibility, in which the choices they made themselves are leading in their failure to launch a full academic career. Comparing the hanging movers with the flowing and doub8ng movers, we see that they lack most of the elements that those other two groups do have: their accounts do not display much pro-ac8ve behaviour, no strong networks or sponsors, they do not say to apply for grants, they had difficul8es balancing research and educa8on, were limle flexible because of family obliga8ons, and whereas the IMAPP woman had moved abroad quite oVen when following her husband, the IMR woman had only lived and worked in the Netherlands. The academic system seems to demand these aspects of individuals for them to succeed, which apparently is harder for women when combining these with caring responsibili8es. The system has driven these women to leave the ‘mainstream’ academic track and find jobs on side tracks to find job security (IMR) and have a paid academic job (IMAPP).
We will now move on to the respondents who did not only leave the GARCIA ins8tutes, but also academia en8rely.
3.2. Leavers
Five out of 18 respondents in the mover/leaver group were people who leV academia. Of the ten respondents from IMAPP, one man and one woman stopped their academic career; of the eight IMR respondents, two men leV academia and one woman was unemployed and remains undecided. We decided to put the lamer in the ‘leaver’ group as at the 8me of the interview she was not working in academia, her prospect of doing so in the future was doubwul, and she was looking for jobs outside academia.
Current situaQonThe leavers took up a variety of func8ons in educa8on, governmental organiza8ons and business. Their ages range from 32 to 40. All leavers had a partner; four out of five lived together with their partner; two out of five had mul8ple young children.
Three of the five leavers leV the ins8tutes inten8onally: two men (IMR) and one woman (IMAPP). They had been an assistant professor, (shortly appointed) postdoc, and PhD candidate respec8vely. These leavers seemed happy in their choice and current lifestyle. One man (IMR), for instance, said to feel more balanced even though now he some8mes worked at nights or in the weekend, in contrast to when he worked as an academic. The two (man and woman) who leV involuntarily seemed more ambivalent regarding their current situa8on. The man expressed resentment concerning the reason he leV academia (see below) and found a job elsewhere.
Even though they leV, leavers s8ll kept 8es with academia. Two of the leavers were s8ll involved in supervising PhDs or postdocs. One of the leavers was hired each year to give lectures as an external at the ins8tute. The job seeker was working on wri8ng academic papers, to enhance her chances on the academic labour market.
The job seeker lived for almost a year on public benefits, and now got on with savings and the salary of her non-academic partner. She had been looking for jobs inside and out of academia from even before her contract ended two years earlier. In the beginning she only focused on assistant professorships, which, she noted, was a “natural” choice. AVer her contract ended she got her University Teaching Qualifica8on, and she was working on a research proposal with researchers in her home country, for the same reason she was s8ll working on papers, which was to be able to keep a door open to re-enter academia. Having had to make the decision to look for jobs inside and outside academia made her feel like a “ball between two walls”.
TrajectoriesAll leavers had done their PhD at one of the two ins8tutes and so were already familiar with the ins8tute when they entered a postdoc or assistant professor posi8on. Two of them immediately went on to do a subsequent postdoc project aVer their PhD in the same ins8tute (both IMR). One leV the academic career right aVer her PhD. Two leavers (men) moved to other ins8tutes for a period of two to four years to do research but then returned to the GARCIA ins8tute. Both women leavers had gomen their PhD with dis8nc8on (cum laude), and one of them was awarded a prize for promising young scholars. Whereas one of them leV inten8onally as she wanted to pursue other goals than a research career (seeing research as too abstract, see below), the other leV involuntarily because she could not manage to get an academic posi8on. Academic excellence is thus no guarantee for a ‘flowing’ academic career.
Three of the five leavers started their academic careers with hesitance about pursuing such a career. One man leaver thought of his PhD as “being off the streets for four years” and had an ad-hoc strategy to his working life (not a ‘career’). A woman leaver was slightly pushed by her supervisor to pursue a PhD but decided during the PhD that she wanted to do other things than academic research or educa8on.
Why leave academia?As said, three of the five leavers leV the ins8tutes inten8onally: two men (IMR) and one woman (IMAPP). They gave several reasons:
The requirement of going abroad for longer periods and/or oVen was one of the reasons why the interviewees said to have leV. The IMAPP woman stated she wasn’t willing to
“give up her life” for academia, which she saw as necessary to be successful in academia (similar to the doub8ng woman mover from IMAPP):
“First, in physics if you want to conQnue in science you need to go abroad. In any case. For an indefinite amount of Qme. If you’re lucky, that’s three years. I was thirty when I got my PhD. That’s not a good moment to go abroad, especially if your boyfriend doesn’t want to come with you. So that’s a pracQcal [reason]. If I really would have wanted that, we would have found a way”.
Family and partner played an important role for the leavers regarding this reason. Going abroad is seen by these leavers as a requirement, a standard and a norm in academia, making it difficult to align work and life. This put these former academics off to the extent that it was one of the reasons to leave such environment.
Both IMR men said not to be interested in furthering their academic careers, as they had no ambi8on and drive to publish. As this is a central aspect of an academic career, con8nuing in this field was not a realis8c op8on.
The two IMR men wanted to build their career according to their own condi8ons, not laid upon them by the academic system. One man chose for his current occupa8on to have the autonomy to plan his own 8me and tasks, and to not have to be “held accountable” to anyone for his performance but to himself. Working in academia meant “being governed by the issues of the day and the lecture Qmetable”. Moreover, they denounced the compe88ve and individual culture of science, in which they perceived the ‘average’ to be undervalued. We quote one of them at length about the academic system:
“It’s just a very parasiQcal system that breaks you down completely. The way it is shaped and people deal with it and the atmosphere that has been created around it and the work pressure that comes with it. I think it has become inhumane – so definitely no balance. […] And the story I told myself constantly was, I do not parQcipate in the race and I need to stay close to myself and then we’ll see how far I can get. But I had to repeat that story really oken to make it sound pseudo-convincing [..] ‘I try really hard and I am a seriously good lecturer and a seriously good researcher, I do not doubt that’ […] If you put me between those types, like at conferences, types who are bragging against one another, and here in the insQtute it wasn’t that bad, right, but it was behind that screen, they were all there and so they were in your head as well […] it’s something very intangible. Because it’s in your head, you grow up [in academia] with compeQQon, anxiety and fear, and yeah, that was always something very deep”
This quote shows a strong nega8ve reac8on to his experiences in academia. He denounced the focus on individual performance and impression management, and the ‘types’ that work in academia. His quote also points to the internaliza8on of norms and values and how this ins8gates a feeling of fear and unrest. From his account a feeling of lack of safety appears. Notably, not (wan8ng to) par8cipa8ng in the ‘race’ made him leave academia in the end, which suggests that par8cipa8on indeed is necessary to remain in academia.
AVer having been rejected for internal assistant professor posi8ons, one leaver saw no future for him in his sub-department (IMR):
“That played a role in the image, that if it can’t happen on my terms then I don’t have to [conQnue in science] per se, so that’s when I started looking for other things […] It was a mismatch with one of the professors in the commivee. That was a conflict of styles […] it was personality, it was really on a personal [level], as a person there was a sort of non-click and that happened both Qmes with different members of the recruitment commivee […] On the other side I didn’t have a CV that blows you away […] And I also did not have the ambiQous researcher story of wanQng to publish a lot, gaining a lot of project funding. I had a more relaQvisQc story in that respect [..] I wasn't mainstream [in both fields to which he related]”
The interviewee gives several reasons for not being hired: mismatch of personali8es between him and the commimee members; not being granted the opportunity by professors; a CV that is not perceived as excellent; a lack of ambi8on; and working in a non-mainstream field. He thus blamed both others and himself for his failure to gain one of those posi8ons.
Several respondents found academic work too abstract and of limle prac8cal use or value for society:
“It’s very far away, very abstract, very decoupled from daily reality. And the, it’s really the quesQon, what is impact? Is it impact if you have a much read arQcle? Yes lovely, honestly, no problem. But at the same Qme, what does that mean. So I wanted a job in which I had the feeling that I could do something useful” (IMAPP, woman, leaver)
This leaver ques8oned the impact of her academic work (“decoupled from daily reality”) and wanted to do something more immediately useful. One leaver (m) said to get more energy from administra8ve-like tasks than from doing research. Although transla8ng science to society is becoming increasingly valued and important for academic careers, these leavers did not see or make space for their research to become valuable enough in their eyes to con8nue on the academic track. They sought a more direct impact of their work on their environment. One of them said:
“It is my opinion that universiQes are really making a big mistake right now. They are alienaQng themselves from society in this way […] We see that universiQes shape their policy on the basis of one parameter, which is publishing. And it’s those publicaQons that actually do not end up in society in the end”
He cri8cized the academic system for being too focused on publica8ons, which do not have an impact on society. This explains why he was not keen on gevng papers published.
Besides the abstractness of her prior research, the IMAPP woman also leV to develop other competencies and skills. She believed she had learnt all she wanted of academic life and wanted to go in another direc8on.
The two leavers (IMAPP man and IMR woman) who leV their ins8tutes less willingly and because of circumstances did so for diverse reasons. Interes8ngly, the man from IMAPP predominantly used a discourse of contextual and poli8cal factors, whereas the IMR woman used a discourse of own responsibility. The man gave mostly external mo8ves which led him to leave the IMAPP:
As a result of ‘bad contract nego8a8ons’ he had devoted too much 8me on academic housework – which is a requirement of the ins8tute – which gave him too limle space for research:
“I really liked that [extra tasks], so that’s why I didn’t mind. In hindsight it cost me much more work that it should have cost and I didn’t blow the whistle […] I also got a lot of recogniQon for what I was doing […] That was very naive […] and I actually needed to do research”
Here he said he was responsible for not gevng a subsequent posi8on. Yet, the appointment of a new professor in the ins8tute who was not in his field (topic A), then hindered his possibility for an assistant professorship: