Fair work for gig economies – what about universities?

Nordwit researchers participated in the WORK2021 Conference (13-14 Oct 2021), chaired by professor Anne Kovalainen, Turku University, Finland. The conference keynote speakers addressed the global working conditions under gig economies and digital platforms. Funda Ustek-Spilda, University of Oxford and the Fairwork Network, talked about fair work after Covid-19 and described five aspects that would make fair work in gig economies: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair representation. Then, Uma Rami presented an ILO report of an extensive global study on how digital platforms transform the conditions of work.

The algorithms of digital platforms, measuring productivity and various other indexes, the results being displayed at the internet, coordinate the interplay of clients and workers. Simultaneously they influence on everyday lives of the workers (coming more often from the global South) and even the lives of Finnish mom bloggers, as was discussed by Katariina Mäkinen.

Digital platforms and gig economies make an illuminating context also for the Nordwit researchers who presented in the streams of Gendered Work, chaired by Päivi Korvajärvi and Minna Nikunen (Griffin, Salminen Karlsson, Vehviläinen), as well as in Digital Society, Technology and Work (Corneliusen, Seddighi).

Marja Vehviläinen presented a research paper, co-authored with Päivi Korvajärvi and Oili-Helena Ylijoki, to be published in the Finnish Journal of Working Life Research in November 2021, on the persistence of gender inequalities in the Finnish academia during the past four decades. The found persistent gender inequalities address many of the concerns of the Fairwork Network: work conditions, work contracts and management which are all governed with the neoliberal algorithms on productivity and competition. Universities have not learnt – in four decades – to implement fair recruitment, supervision or management, including, for example, of the reconciliation of parenting and research work.

Gabriele Griffin discussed work-work (in)balance in research and innovation. The multiple simultaneous projects, contracts, work roles and split work time, combined with constant work overload, found in her study on Nordic academic workers in Digital Humanism, do not sound very different from the workers’ conditions described in the ILO report of digital platforms. However, academic research and innovation work may partially have adapted even more extreme forms neoliberalism than the digital platforms. There are competitions of research funding in which even 95 % of research funding applications fail. Time spent on failing applications do not count and do not even get measured by the algorithms that measure the productivity in research and innovation institutions. Griffin suggested more research over the “multiple project culture”, and also change for it, as the multiple project culture is not sustainable for institutions nor for individuals who work in them.

Marja Vehviläinen

Summing up 5 years of Nordwit research

Last week we came together for the last ordinary half-year meeting of the Nordwit consortium. We had two days of summing up findings from all our publications; a long and diverse list of 30 published and soon to be published manuscripts from our nearly 5 years of research together. You can see the proud list here: Nordwit publications.

The Nordwit researchers meeting, still in Covid-19 online fashion

Looking back at our studies of women’s tech-driven careers in academia, private and public sectors, in Sweden, Finland and Norway, we discussed similarities and differences of gender patterns, of continuous gender discrimination, and of a Nordic gender equality ideal that often fails to manifest itself in these patterns. One of the similarities we discussed was how the Nordic gender equality norm works as a confirmation that gender equality has been agreed upon and perhaps also achieved, with the effect that the actual institutional practices do not (have to) reflect the gender norm that is simultaneously endorsed. This creates a gap between the norm of gender equality and the institutional practices, where the narrative about the first to a great extent hides discriminating practices of institutions within fields of tech-driven research and innovation. You can read more about this in several of our publications, including the recent article “Unpacking the Nordic Gender Equality Paradox in ICT Research and Innovation“.

We will continue to discuss these and other issues as we prepare the final presentations of Nordwit’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations for improving the situation for women in tech-driven careers, inside and outside academia. While this meeting was virtual due to the pandemic situation, we hope that the final meeting and the Nordwit conference in February 2022 will be a face-to-face meeting in Uppsala, where we can hug when we meet, drink coffee together in-between the sessions, and share stories about all the stuff that is hard to include when the meeting room is virtual.

Maybe we will see you there as well!