Quitting Academia: Why Women and Men Leave and What it Says About Higher Education

Quitting Academia: Why Women and Men Leave and What it Says About Higher Education

This insightful book explores what drives academics to leave their careers, and examines their experiences during and after the process of quitting higher education. Anna M. Górska highlights how a career in academia has moved from being a secure and meaningful profession to one that is increasingly competitive and demanding, resulting in faculty burnout. Based on 42 in-depth interviews with tenured and tenure-track faculty, the book brings forward nuanced, personal narratives that explore why people leave academia, and how they subsequently rebuild their identities, careers, and lives. Górska critically engages with neoliberalism, exploring how managerialism, performativity, and market-driven logics have reshaped academic identities and institutions. Górska also analyses the gendered experience of quitting academia, emphasising that women face additional systemic inequalities and invisible forms of labour that shape their career trajectories. This book challenges the assumption that leaving is a personal failure, instead arguing that quitting can be a courageous response to a system that no longer serves those within it. This book is an essential resource for students and academics in higher education studies, diversity and management, gender studies and organisational studies. It is also an informative read for academic leaders, administrators and policymakers, as well as academics who are considering alternative career paths. ‘Gorska's Quitting Academia is both an analysis of the harms of the neoliberal academy in these times of economic and political assault, which increasingly drive tenure-line faculty to leave the profession, and also a compendium of voices and stories of those who left. This makes it an invaluable resource, because stories alone don't capture the structural violence of the academic career for so many, while analysis alone can't capture the personal arc - in particular the feelings of relief and liberation - experienced by those who leave. The book should be required reading for all faculty struggling with untenable career demands, and for any upper administrator who still cares about faculty welfare.’ -- Karen Kelsky, Academic Consultant, USA ‘Quitting Academia is an insightful and timely window into today’s higher education. It’s a book that weaves in stories of resistance, self-care, injustice and work with sensitivity and skill. It’s a book for those who’ve had enough of neoliberal academia themselves, and it is also a precious resource for those who inhabit positions of power and influence in this context. It’s a book for those who still feel privileged and in love with their academic work, as well as for those who are considering the start of a career in higher education, at a time where an increasing number of people decides to leave this profession - or only stay part time - to explore other work, creative endeavours, and caring environments. Although this is explicitly a book about women, it will resonate with many other people in the field, across disciplines and geographic boundaries.’ -- Ilaria Boncori, University of Essex, UK ‘Why are scholars voluntarily leaving academia? Anna Górska presents in a challenging way the voices of people quitting academia. She presents hopes and disillusions of women and men who have left academia. She concludes that quitting academia is not a sign of failure, but a sign of resistance to the present neo-liberal academia. Academia with its publish-or-perish system is increasingly finding itself in a state of deep crisis. The book is written in the context of academic labor, neo-liberal governance and feminist critical studies. She is analyzing the gender dynamics that influence the decision to leave. The book is written in a “writing differently approach” and Anna Górska is engaging with those who have left. She is standing in a tradition of reflective feminism. Anna Górska is presenting stories we easily can recognize and identify with, and she is challenging the present academic system. The book is very easy to follow and read. Anna, I am very happy that you have remained in academia to tell the stories of those quitting - and to contribute to resolving the crisis in neo-liberal academia. Thank you for your important contributions.' -- Morten Huse, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway ‘The question “what are universities for?” keeps returning, even though it has been often declared in media and policy that the university has now been irrevocably transformed into a market-oriented, entrepreneurial organization. Only, it has not - it keeps standing out as something not quite fitting into the picture. It is hard to tell what it produces and they do not have a bottomline (measurable profits). Academics keep engaging in activities that are not adapted to the new model: writing books, exchanging ideas, reflecting, questioning things taken-for-granted - such as the “new market-adapted university”. The structures that are provided to