Quitting Academia

This insightful book explores what drives academics to leave their careers, and examines their experiences during and after the process of quitting higher education. Anna M. Gorska highlights how a career in academia has moved from being a secure and meaningful profession to one that is increasingly competitive and demanding, resulting in faculty burnout.Based on 42 in-depth interviews with tenured and tenure-track faculty, the book brings forward nuanced, personal narratives that explore why people leave academia, and how they subsequently rebuild their identities, careers, and lives. Gorska critically engages with neoliberalism, exploring how managerialism, performativity, and market-driven logics have reshaped academic identities and institutions. Gorska also analyses the gendered experience of quitting academia, emphasising that women face additional systemic inequalities and invisible forms of labour that shape their career trajectories. This book challenges the assumption that leaving is a personal failure, instead arguing that quitting can be a courageous response to a system that no longer serves those within it.This book is an essential resource for students and academics in higher education studies, diversity and management, gender studies and organisational studies. It is also an informative read for academic leaders, administrators and policymakers, as well as academics who are considering alternative career paths.