As time goes by the world seems to divide into a small part that is very rich and another that survives or lives with very little. What will be the fate of researchers and professors, especially from the Third World, in very few years? The works are more and more for a limited period of time -and short.
What will be the future of research and science if the researchers who are in charge of producing knowledge must divide their time and sometimes more to cover their basic needs and that of their family?
Dear Pablo Baisotti ,
I belong to those who have to do other jobs to survive ...
Most of us are from that third world , All of us have families , most of us have to pay the expenses of our researches .
So I think that most of us have to do other jobs to survive .
Best Regards
like me, and when arrives the last month of the contract is getting worst
Research/teaching isn't the best profession to make money. Even the best qualified professionals depend on their management, circumstances, colleagues, and luck to make relatively satisfactory wages in both developed and under development countries. There is a false notion that scientists are underpaid because they are involved in very interesting jobs requiring talent, high creativity, and an acute interest in their research/teaching domains. So that they would keep working even under somewhat reduced scale of payments. It is a very serious mistake. Only a small percentage of scientists are altruists ready to work for miserable payments. Most of talented young people will move slowly but surely to other working areas.
Dear Dr. Pablo, thank you for this interesting and important question. I agree with respectable Colleagues, almost all of us have to do other job (unfortunately, most of cannot do it due to different reasons many of you probably face with, depending on the country investment into - in this concrete case - education and its human resources, etc.). But we still do our teaching, research and scientific work, because we do like it and we try to do it the best way possible despite everything. We'll do it, anyway. All the best to all of you.
Thank you very much Slavica
as I read the interesting answers I wondered how does a person who is a certain age and who worked most all his adult life in teaching or researching. Having to reinvent yourself when you're a certain age must be difficult.
Except for these last few years, I don't remember just studying or researching, but most of the time my first job was as an employee in a restaurant, working in a bus, in a parking lot all night. Of course they were underpaid jobs and without a contract most of them, just enough to cover the basic needs. What a horrible situation to devote your whole life to research and teaching with passion and after 20 or 30 years you have to go back to work in these abusive jobs.
Dear Pablo, you are right. It is quite difficult, especially when certain age comes, and we cannot find anything else. I completely understand you and our colleagues. We all face the same difficulty. I always wonder what to do not to become demotivated in this situation, and when in our country no-one wants to hear professors or students' voices, in particular. We cannot live of hope, only. You're right. But education in some countries, like where I live, is so undervalued and marginalized. That's why we all, no matter where we live or work, should co-operate and at least try to do something for better education.
Historically, only already wealthier people could afford to 'work' in academia.
AvHumboldt consumed his economic heritage for research, for example; JWvGoethe went into state administration.The modern academic assembly line functions by various contracts, labors of love and some top appointments ('the beef').
https://uniavisen.dk/en/the-academic-precariat-strikes-back/
http://visegradrevue.eu/too-many-phds-for-malnourished-academia/
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20160223152208193
https://twitter.com/acaprecariat?lang=de
We should keep in mind the proverb ' "necessity is the mother of invention "
Dr. Pablo posed a very important and interesting question, indeed. Thank you. Most of us, especially from the low-income countries face the same problem. But if the countries where we work impose to us to work other jobs to survive (and that's our everyday reality), then how we can fulfill our everyday academic duties - teaching, scientific research, etc. It could do harm not only to the educational system, but also to the academic staff itself. No wonder that so many (not only young, but also middle-aged) highly-competent and skilled people from various professions, including academic one, leave this country.
Many people, some times one job is not enough to cover what we need.
to everything expressed by the gentle colleagues and myself, there follows a situation that will be understood, above all, by those who lived through the same situations, which is to be forced to leave their own country in search of better opportunities.
In my particular situation, with 4 degrees - before the doctorate and even after - I couldn't get a job beyond the ones I mentioned. The answers were simple: either untrained or overtrained, I had to reformulate my CV by removing almost the entire education section in order to work, as I pointed out in a restaurant; and when I wanted to enter the academy there was always someone else more appropiate for the position, curiously from that country
In poor countries which can not properly support the researchers - many have to find an additional job.
Doing other jobs, I feel is the interest and necessity of an individual. One has to live happily with what a person has. Beyond expectations, may lead to earning by different sources. If income is short for the job a person is working, one can opt a job for survival.
Estimado Pablo,
En el caso de Argentina, las universidades pagan un salario muy bajo, por lo que también trabajo en escuelas secundarias y, a veces en otros trabajos circunstanciales.
Saludos
Ricardo
Dear Doctor
[So prices are rising like crazy all across the country and it’s getting even harder to afford everything. For some reason whenever I have a conversation with someone about this they just shut me down and say “well people need to stop being lazy and get a second job” or “work more than 40 hours”.
First off, if someone works 40 hours a week they are not at all lazy. Second, no one should ever have to work that much just to afford to live. “Get a better job” not everyone can find another job assshole it’s not that easy]
[Millions of Americans are currently working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet, as global inflation and corporations jacking up prices have sent prices of food, gas, housing, health insurance and other necessities soaring in the past year.]
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