The Impact of Korean University Restructuring on the Employment of NESTs and NNESTs

Abstract

Objectives The study aimed to investigate how the restructuring of higher education in Korea influenced contingent faculty, in particular, NESTs and NNESTs.
 Methods Laws relevant to academic labor from 2005 to 2019 were collected and analyzed, and the educational statistics were also collected and analyzed to support the results of the analysis of the laws. Furthermore, five NESTS and five NNESTs were interviewed to provide the contexts to the quantitative data.
 Results The results reveal that 1) despite their original intentions, the laws negatively influenced contingent faculty in higher education, 2) the personal and professional lives of NESTs and NNESTs were affected by social-structural constraints, and 3) as a result, the competition between NESTs and NNESTs for reduced job openings grew, and individuals struggled to secure their position in the academic job market.
 Conclusions The findings imply that the problems that contingent faculty face are not individual problems but social-structural problems, so educational administrators and the Ministry of Education should work on preventing the academic job market from becoming more competitive than necessary. Contingent faculty also need to be aware that individuals have power to bring about change.