- Title Pages
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- General introduction
-
Part I How data are changing:Part I editors:Humphrey Southall andJeff Evans -
1 Statistical work: the changing occupational landscape -
2 The creation and use of big administrative data -
3 Data analytics -
4 Social media data -
Part II Counting in a globalised world:Part II editors:Sally Ruane andJeff Evans -
5 Adult skills surveys and transnational organisations: globalising educational policy -
6 Using survey data: towards valid estimates of poverty in the South -
7 Counting the population in need of international protection globally -
8 Tax justice and the challenges of measuring illicit financial flows -
Part III Statistics and the changing role of the state:Part III editors:Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
9 The control and ‘fitness for purpose’ of UK official statistics -
10 The statistics of devolution -
11 Welfare reform: national policies with local impacts -
12 From ‘welfare’ to ‘workfare’, and back again? Social insecurity and the changing role of the state -
13 Access to data and NHS privatisation: reducing public accountability -
Part IV Economic life: Part IV editors:Humphrey Southall ,Sally Ruane andJeff Evans -
14 The ‘distribution question’: measuring and evaluating trends in inequality -
15 Labour market statistics -
16 The financial system: money makes the world go around -
17 The difficulty of building comprehensive tax avoidance data -
18 Tax and spend decisions: did austerity improve financial numeracy and literacy? -
Part V Inequalities in health and wellbeing: Part V editors:Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
19 Health divides -
20 Measuring social wellbeing -
21 Re-engineering health policy research to measure equity impacts -
22 The Generation Game: ending the phoney information war between young and old -
Part VI Advancing social progress through critical statistical literacy: Part VI editors:Jeff Evans ,Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
23 The Radical Statistics Group: using statistics for progressive social change -
24 Lyme disease politics and evidence‑based policy making in the UK -
25 Counting the uncounted: contestations over casualisation data in Australian universities -
26 The quantitative crisis in UK sociology -
27 Critical statistical literacy and interactive data visualisations -
28 Full Fact -
29 What a difference a dataset makes? Data journalism and/as data activism - Epilogue: progressive ways ahead
- Index
Counting the uncounted: contestations over casualisation data in Australian universities
Counting the uncounted: contestations over casualisation data in Australian universities
- Chapter:
- (p.327) 25 Counting the uncounted: contestations over casualisation data in Australian universities
- Source:
- Data in Society
- Author(s):
Nour Dados
James Goodman
Keiko Yasukawa
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
Recently, insecure work in universities in many countries has grown exponentially, alongside the rapid marketization of higher education. Reflecting the neoliberal ideal of a flexible workforce, research and teaching at universities is routinely carried out by precariously-employed academics. In Australia, for instance, the bulk of university teaching is now carried out by hourly-paid employees. This structural dependence on precarious academics poses a reputational problem for universities, and universities respond by obfuscating the statistical evidence. We present a case study of tracking down the level of this phenomenon in Australian higher education. The academics’ trade union and allies have used the university-level figures to challenge the advance of academic job insecurity, and are now highlighting the incidence of precarious academic employment nationally. Our own work has highlighted the multiple and conflicting figures being reported by universities, and the systematic underestimation of the actual rate of insecure jobs reported by government departments. We question these unreliable estimates, examples of neoliberalism’s ‘funny numbers’, and develop alternative data and arguments Thereby, we aim to reveal the impact of casualisation and enable critical evaluation of trends in the higher education sector, so as to restore industrial justice.
Keywords: Precarious employment, hourly-paid academics, casualization, funny numbers, Australia
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- Title Pages
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- General introduction
-
Part I How data are changing:Part I editors:Humphrey Southall andJeff Evans -
1 Statistical work: the changing occupational landscape -
2 The creation and use of big administrative data -
3 Data analytics -
4 Social media data -
Part II Counting in a globalised world:Part II editors:Sally Ruane andJeff Evans -
5 Adult skills surveys and transnational organisations: globalising educational policy -
6 Using survey data: towards valid estimates of poverty in the South -
7 Counting the population in need of international protection globally -
8 Tax justice and the challenges of measuring illicit financial flows -
Part III Statistics and the changing role of the state:Part III editors:Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
9 The control and ‘fitness for purpose’ of UK official statistics -
10 The statistics of devolution -
11 Welfare reform: national policies with local impacts -
12 From ‘welfare’ to ‘workfare’, and back again? Social insecurity and the changing role of the state -
13 Access to data and NHS privatisation: reducing public accountability -
Part IV Economic life: Part IV editors:Humphrey Southall ,Sally Ruane andJeff Evans -
14 The ‘distribution question’: measuring and evaluating trends in inequality -
15 Labour market statistics -
16 The financial system: money makes the world go around -
17 The difficulty of building comprehensive tax avoidance data -
18 Tax and spend decisions: did austerity improve financial numeracy and literacy? -
Part V Inequalities in health and wellbeing: Part V editors:Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
19 Health divides -
20 Measuring social wellbeing -
21 Re-engineering health policy research to measure equity impacts -
22 The Generation Game: ending the phoney information war between young and old -
Part VI Advancing social progress through critical statistical literacy: Part VI editors:Jeff Evans ,Sally Ruane andHumphrey Southall -
23 The Radical Statistics Group: using statistics for progressive social change -
24 Lyme disease politics and evidence‑based policy making in the UK -
25 Counting the uncounted: contestations over casualisation data in Australian universities -
26 The quantitative crisis in UK sociology -
27 Critical statistical literacy and interactive data visualisations -
28 Full Fact -
29 What a difference a dataset makes? Data journalism and/as data activism - Epilogue: progressive ways ahead
- Index