This simple and well-meaning question, often asked by family members and friends, is the bane of many academic couples. As a scholar of US history and member of just such a couple, I have answered it many times, always struggling to explain the peculiarities of the academic job market.
I’ll give it another try.
The inability of one partner to get a tenure-track job at the other’s school begins with the decades-long decline in tenure-track positions.1 The odds of landing any tenure-track job are slim, so finding an institution willing to hire both halves of an academic couple is even slimmer.2 Why are the odds so low? Because the academic job market isn’t a market at all, but rather, in the words of two of its critics, “a slaughterhouse.” There are very few tenure-track jobs to be had, period.
Tenure-track employment offers some degree of security, certainly, but the security of tenure requires years to achieve; even in a healthy job market, it wouldn’t be realistic for academic couples who took tenure-track jobs in different places to simply go on the job market again right away in the hopes of ending up at the same institution. As a result, many scholars face this problem of spousal employment—charmingly referred to as the “two body problem”—and try different strategies to solve it so that both partners can continue in their careers.
The first strategy involves the partner who has received a tenure-track job offer trying to arrange what is usually called a “spousal hire” or “partner hire.” They tell their hiring institution that they will only accept the job if their partner receives one as well. The location, size, and wealth of an institution determine whether a spousal hire is even possible. A large university, for instance, with a corresponding larger faculty, may be better handled to accommodate a spousal hire. Having partners in different fields can also help. It may be easier to hire a physicist and an art historian than two art historians.3 Size, however, is no guarantee of success.
At smaller institutions, with fewer faculty and financial resources, the odds of these hires are even longer. My wife, a historian of disability in Early America, teaches at a state-run boarding school for gifted high school students. Her department has four historians—three Americanists and one non-Americanist. When the school hired her, there was no opportunity for a spousal hire simply because they only had one vacant post, with no budget for another historian.
Additionally, the academic needs of a particular department play a part in whether a spousal hire is even possible. Using the above example, a physicist has received a tenure-track offer and is trying to negotiate a position for their art history partner, who studies 18th century French art. If the art history department already has a faculty member with that specialization, the institution would likely refuse to offer them a tenure-track job. If the institution does not have someone in that field, our fictional couple has a chance at success.
Academic couples, however, still need institutions to play ball. And institutions overwhelmingly have neither the funding nor the desire to make spousal hires happen. Why? Because they don’t have to. The slaughterhouse of the job market makes it extremely risky for a job candidate to turn down a job. With so few jobs in a given subfield each year, a candidate may not get another offer for years—if ever. Additionally, institutions have their pick of job candidates, so finding a well-qualified replacement without the added demand of a spousal hire would not take much effort.4
If an academic couple can’t get a partner hire, they’re faced with a life-changing choice. They can live apart, allowing each to individually pursue their academic careers, but to the detriment of their personal relationship. Many academic couples do this, teaching at different institutions while spending summers, holidays, and breaks together. In more densely-populated areas, these separations are difficult but logistically manageable. Cars, trains, and airplanes make travel possible but expensive. The farther apart the couple lives, however, the less often they see one another. Again, speaking from experience, the separation takes its toll. Texts, Zoom chats, and other forms of communication cannot replicate or replace the joy that comes from physical and emotional connection with a partner. In the present job market, however, it may not be possible for both partners to find permanent employment regardless of how far apart they’re willing to tolerate living.
If a couple wants to live together, but cannot arrange a spousal hire, then the partner without a guarantee of employment becomes a “trailing partner.”
Trailing partners, if they decide to stay in academia, pay a heavy price in their careers. At best, they may receive a visiting assistant professor (VAP) position, or more likely will try to string together classes at one or more institutions as an adjunct instructor. These temporary positions, however, come with many disadvantages.
The first is a lack of institutional support (money) for research and conference travel. Trailing partners must pay for such expenses out of their own pockets. Moreover, VAPs and adjunct positions come with heavy teaching loads, making it even harder for trailing partners to attend conferences and travel for research.5 This lack of money and time means it is more difficult for them to write the books or articles necessary to make them an attractive candidate when they apply for a tenure-track job—if one ever opens up. Even if they do research and publish, they are likely not rewarded for that work by their institution in the same way their partner is—with job security.6
Finally, trailing spouses, as temporary faculty, earn less per class than their permanently-employed partners. They have no guarantee of continued employment at the institution from term to term or year to year. They also lack access to promotion, retirement programs, and other employee benefits. Without the ability to secure permanent employment, trailing spouses must either abandon their academic careers or be trapped in an endless cycle of highly demanding and poorly-paid temporary academic work.7
I have experienced this cycle first-hand as an adjunct and as someone who is no longer seeking academic employment. As an adjunct, I taught for a year at my wife’s school, but did not receive the permanent job when it opened up. That rejection, coupled with the other realities of being a trailing spouse, has taken its toll on my emotional and mental health. In the meantime, I have cheered my wife as she has received promotions and institutional support to present at and attend conferences.
Ultimately, the answer to such a simple and well-intentioned question—”Why can’t you just get a job at your partner’s school?”—reveals the life-altering difficulties academic couples face in navigating the job market.
- To learn more about these jobs, why they’re so important, and why they’re increasingly rare, read “What Are The Different Kinds Of College Faculty?”
- The odds of landing jobs at different institutions in the same general area aren’t any better.
- Having partners whose specialties fall in two different colleges within the university, however, might make it more difficult.
- This is also why some job offers aren’t very good in the first place.
- Why do historians need to go to conferences anyway? And isn’t everything digitized by now?
- But wait? Can’t they at least make money from their writing? Not quite.
- Learn more about this work from the perspective of an undergraduate.