Staff who qualify for a Senior’s Card but cling onto their tenure are increasingly common in Australian HE, but frequently canny enough to fly under the radar.
The sector’s version of Scott Morrison’s ‘Quiet Australians’ (unseen by the commentators but weilding significant power), and those who work for or manage them will be interested in having a quick read of John O’Rouke and Christina Grey’s latest article, which examines the challenges of remaining motivated and maintaining wellbeing for older academics.
The article is immediately engaging and traces one academic’s experience in the workforce over more than 20 years, pondering how to navigate the future as a veteran academic.
The authors note that the number of tenured staff aged 59+ has grown substantially in recent years. In 1989 just over one third of academics were aged over 45 and by 2021 this was almost one in two – with the number aged 59+ growing from 1,000 to 8,000 during this period.
The article looks at the importance of self-care in maintaining motivation and wellbeing – identifying pressure points relating to slower-than expected career progression, work-life balance, home life challenges and a range of other issues.
The article also looks at strategies employed to protect wellbeing during this time, noting that different people will find different strategies effective.
“As much as organizations should evolve to support a changing workforce, as emphasized, each individual veteran academic has a responsibility around self-care,” the article states.
This is an important topic, and clearly needs to be tackled from more angles with further research.
While this is the latest in a small number of interesting papers examining how older academics can muster the enthusiasm to continue to collect their paycheck, there appears to be very little if any similar work encouraging professional staff to do the same – or indeed analysing the impact of an entrenched aging workforce on productivity and opportunity for progression for younger staff. Is there a double standard in perceptions of older workers in the sector, depending on status, gender and/or occupation? Or are all older workers subject to similar challenges and opportunities.
Far more work is required to analyse key dynamics in higher education workforce if the sector is serious about doubling domestic student numbers over the next 25 years.
