Gender and the Casualisation of Work in Irish Universities

Women in Research Ireland (WIRI) hosted a discussion exploring the topic of Gender and the Casualisation of Work in Irish Universities.

When: Fri, 05 Nov, 13h
Where: via Zoom

This event will promote a debate on the rise in precarious academic employment in Ireland to shed new light on work precarity issues in academia. Women are particularly overrepresented in increasing numbers of contingent academics who cannot find permanent employment. While the casualisation of work means that increasing numbers of academics, both male and female, are now subject to the precarious, low-paid work, piece-work conditions are long endured mostly by women.


If you are concerned about the emergence of a new precarious workforce, predominantly female, and precarious positions of early career academics, especially women, and want to understand how we can
challenge the gender inequality in academia, join WIRI for this informative and honest webinar. Topics discussed will include:


• Working conditions in universities

• The intersection of precarious work, gender and minorities in higher education

• Distress, financial insecurity and impossibility of planning a future

• Contractual job security

• Feminization of academic labour

• Women’s over‐represented in part‐time and fixed‐term positions

• Devaluation of care work

• Challenges for female academics of colour

• Lack of professional recognition


Questions are encouraged from attendees via the Zoom Q&A box. Questions can be submitted anonymously.

Meet the panellists:

Dr Theresa O’Keefe is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology at University College Cork (UCC) since 2016, where she researches gender and egalitarian social change. Her areas of expertise are feminism and social movements, gender and state violence, precarity and inequality in higher education. Prior to UCC, she lectured in Equality Studies at the School of Social Justice, University College Dublin and in Sociology at Maynooth University. As a feminist sociologist, she has a firm commitment to feminist praxis and public sociology which is reflected in both her scholarship and teaching.

Paula Tumulty is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Work and Employment Studies Kemmy Business School, at University of Limerick. Her current research examines the employment relationship of Early Career Academics (ECA) in a context of imposed austerity in Ireland. Her research focus the role, scope and nature of academic work in Ireland under an evolving and constrained public sector Higher Education system.