The publication cycle is vicious. We hear a lot about the hard-working academic, but it won’t change until researchers themselves decide it’s not worth it. And please don’t tell me it’s about promotions. That’s a small part of the story.
A typical tenure is far more secure than an industry position, yet many of my colleagues work just as hard, if not harder, than the assistant profs hoping to obtain tenure. To date, I haven’t heard a good reason for why they keep working so hard. It’s never mother dying or bills to pay. Rather they are always wishy-washy reasons that hide the real truth: They like it. They enjoy it. It gives them meaning and purpose. Not to mention sabbaticals: I see senior faculty frequently delaying sabbaticals too, for reasons as varied as the individuals themselves and none of them ring true. I often ask, “Do you really think committee A or initiative B would not survive without you?” They hem and haw, but have no concrete statements to back up their reasoning. And don’t get me started on academics who continue to practice into the 70s and 80s, well past their best before date. Most can’t even remember the names of their grad students. It’s pure hubris. The norm should be retiring to teaching-only roles, and hand the mantle of research over to the younger faculty or stepping away from the lab they created by selecting a successor. Rather, it’s the exception.
If all the senior faculty across academia collectively took a break in the same timeframe, say one or two months every year, it would create opportunities for the younger members to step in and shine in their own way across the stratum of activities. Publications receiving fewer (and invited!) papers from senior academics would accept more research from the juniors, there would be more openings on committees. There would be greater career growth at the early stages.
In short, the inmates are at least partly responsible for the rules of the asylum.
Although personality traits might partially explain this, I think you're ignoring powerful systemic incentives too, especially in lab sciences.
First, tenured faculty in lab-science departments are often expected to cover most (~75%) of their own salary via grants. While tenure means you can't be outright fired for not doing this, there are still consequences. Some places will actually reduce your salary (so you have a job, but are now making $25k/year!); others won't do that, but your office can be moved to sub-basement 4 and your assigned classes will be held Monday 8-9am and Friday 4-6pm.
Tenure also only covers your own job. If you run a large lab, students, postdocs, and technicians depend on you for advice and funding. There is—or should be—a decent amount of pressure to be responsible for them, many of whom you've worked closely with for years. To do so, you need to write grants that fund their day-to-day work, revise their papers, and train them.
Finally, even if you don't care about your salary or your people, you probably do care about your own research program. These don't do well with lapses in funding. Preliminary data is essential for grant applications, but it's expensive and time-consuming to collect. Normally, some "falls out" of other, on-going projects: the project looking at how Xs become Ys sometimes detects Zs instead, so here you propose to look at the X->Z pathway. If your funding dries up, you won't have that data source. Without money, you can't get the preliminary data you need to...get money. Since the consequences of running out of money are dire and funding rates are terrible (~15% of grants get funded), the solution is to submit lots of things, which requires lots of work.
These factors explain a lot more, IMO, than personality/egoism. (And the age thing is about more than egoism. If you don't get a "real" job until 40, it's only natural to hang onto it for a while. And age is a terrible proxy for performance: some older profs do awesome work; some younger ones chase the trends du jour).
To date, I haven’t heard a good reason for why they keep working so hard.
The first thing that jumps out to me is that the publish-or-perish phase selects for workaholics. People who are just pretending to be a workaholic, the type who are just trying to survive until tenure, are much more likely to get burned out and drop out of the running. Thus, those who have an uncanny ability to work ridiculously hard over long periods of time are the ones who survive the selection process and get tenured.
Perhaps some of these people genuinely enjoy the work. It would make sense, then, that they are the ones who survive without getting burned out.
I am an academic mathematician, on winter break. I did some research this morning. Why? No wishy-washy reasons here, the reason is as you said: I like it. I will do more today.
I do not believe that my work comes at someone else's expense. My position does -- there are only so many slots for tenured professors -- but not my actual work.
Research is not a zero-sum game. There will always be open problems to investigate.
Exactly. I used to be a mathematician and while I am no longer one, I can completely empathize with wanting to work on math as much as possible. To me, it's exactly the same as why some people want to run marathons, because it's exciting and immensely rewarding, and makes me feel alive.
I graduated with a PhD in math, now working in software.
I went to two math conferences this year, and plan to work on an unfinished paper next year - and hopefully start something new. The only thing stopping me is the lack of time away from the day job (and attention span that it allots). Switching between a software job and mathematics turns out to be hard.
So on that note: why did you use to be a mathematician? What would it take to continue research for fun in any amount?
Yes, the inmates are at least partly responsible for the rules of the asylum. There's an answer to a question about the loneliness in pursuing mathematics on mathoverflow.net that says, paraphrasing, that one should only do mathematics if they can't do anything else [1]. That is, if it is such a burning desire that you can't stop. As long as salaries allow one to live comfortably there will be a supply of people wanting academic jobs. The lifestyle is compelling for a lot of people.
I've been led to believe that even after tenure one still needs to be active and that means to publish. There is a lot of variation on salaries within a given department even at the full professor level. The more active/prestigious you are the more salary you make. Those who are active in research and with graduate students don't have to teach as many low level courses or be on as many committees. At least this is true of mathematics departments at large research institutions that I'm familiar with. I'm not a member of a large research institution but this is what I've been told by members of such institutions. My sample size is too small for me to generalize but it sufficiently large for me to hypothesize.
It depends on the field. In the sciences (especially biosciences), professors typically have to get money from grants to pay for their labs, and sometimes part of their salary. Being able to get grants depends on their publishing record, and losing grants and having to shutter or at least downsize your lab is a very real possibility. So in these fields, although your position is secure, your lab and your salary are actually quite precarious.
It sounds like you are saying that there aren't enough professorships for how many people want to do (and can do) research. Blaming the professors seems misplaced.
The biggest criticism in the comment is that... professors enjoy doing the work they are paid to do?
I would amend this to “not enough [stable] research jobs”
At the moment, a faculty job is pretty much the only stable job in academic research, so if you want one....that’s what you’re doing.
The problem is that training students (and post docs) is part of a faculty job, and some of those will also want faculty jobs, and so on. Increasing the number of professorships just kicks the exponential-growth can a bit down the road.
However, it doesn’t have to be like this. We could make more staff scientist positions that have a bit more responsibility for doing and managing research (and the job security to match), but aren’t expected to train students. I think this would be a win for everyone: it would reduce churn in the lab, enable harder research projects (since these people would have experience), and there’s even data suggesting trainees fare better in labs with more senior-but-not-PI staff. The NCI is now funding a few of these, as is the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, so hopefully it’ll catch on in other fields too.
A typical tenure is far more secure than an industry position, yet many of my colleagues work just as hard, if not harder, than the assistant profs hoping to obtain tenure. To date, I haven’t heard a good reason for why they keep working so hard. It’s never mother dying or bills to pay. Rather they are always wishy-washy reasons that hide the real truth: They like it. They enjoy it. It gives them meaning and purpose. Not to mention sabbaticals: I see senior faculty frequently delaying sabbaticals too, for reasons as varied as the individuals themselves and none of them ring true. I often ask, “Do you really think committee A or initiative B would not survive without you?” They hem and haw, but have no concrete statements to back up their reasoning. And don’t get me started on academics who continue to practice into the 70s and 80s, well past their best before date. Most can’t even remember the names of their grad students. It’s pure hubris. The norm should be retiring to teaching-only roles, and hand the mantle of research over to the younger faculty or stepping away from the lab they created by selecting a successor. Rather, it’s the exception.
If all the senior faculty across academia collectively took a break in the same timeframe, say one or two months every year, it would create opportunities for the younger members to step in and shine in their own way across the stratum of activities. Publications receiving fewer (and invited!) papers from senior academics would accept more research from the juniors, there would be more openings on committees. There would be greater career growth at the early stages.
In short, the inmates are at least partly responsible for the rules of the asylum.