One More Time about the Age of Teachers in Russian Universities: Old Problems and New Trends

Abstract

The paper presents results of analyzing age structure of Russian state universities teaching staff and its dynamics in the post-Soviet period. It is shown that due to the rapid decline after 2010 in the proportion of young people under 30 years of age and increasing share of population over 65 years of age, the imbalance is growing in favor of older people. Comparing average age of university professors and that of the employed population in dynamics shows some exceedance of the former. At the same time, for more than two decades their ratio stayed constant – the average age of teachers was 20 percent or about 8 years more than that of the employed population, which is caused, among other things, by a longer-term professional training. Analyzing age structure for various positions reveals its overall balance, with professors being the oldest in terms of average age, and assistants being the youngest.The study found significant changes of a position structure, affecting primarily professors, whose share has increased several times, as well as assistants and teachers, who occupy two lower positions in the teaching staff. Their share has decreased even more. Insight into teaching staff age structure and osition structure in Russian universities shows that changes in age characteristic, especially shrinking young people population, are associated with job positions, especially with almost complete disappearance of the teaching staff on assistant and lecturer positions. A teaching staff distribution by position also shows that more than three-quarters of the total staff have positions no higher than associate professor. It means this position is actually a “glass ceiling” for teachers in Russian higher education. This fact and almost complete lack of assistants and lecturers result in a two-stage career ladder (senior lecturer – associate professor) for the vast majority of teaching staff in Russian universities, which will inevitably have a negative impact on the level of his qualifications.