Leighton Watson: University of Canterbury Senior lecturer on unpaid internships

A new study has shown teachers, nurses, social workers and midwifes are badly hit financially while on unpaid university placements. 

The study says it can take eight years for a nurse to have higher cumulative earnings than someone who worked for minimum wage at the same time. 

Senior lecturer in maths and statistics at the University of Canterbury Leighton Watson joins the show. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You study looked into unpaid university placements found the likes
of teachers, nurses, social workers, midwives get hit badly financially
from their time spent interning. So in a nurse's case,
it can take eight years to have higher cumulative earnings
and someone who worked the minimum wage in the same time. Now,
the lead author of all Or, the senior lecturer in
maths and Status at the University of Canterbury, Layton Watson,
is with us late and morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
To you Money Mike, thanks for having me on the show.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Not at all. It's a no answer problem, isn't it.
I mean, yes, you can work minimum wage, but you're
probably not happy. You might be happy being a social
worker or a midwife. It's your choice, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah. So I think for a long time we've relied
on people's passion in these sales to attract teachers, nurses,
social workers, in midwife They don't normally do it for
the pay, if not normally, people don't go into these
professions to make a huge amount of money. They go
into it for the passion. And what we're trying to
demonstrate here is that there's workforce shortages in these areas.
And I think potentially we have been relying on the

(00:54):
passion too long to recruit and retain workers in these
in these.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Professions, I tend to agree where the dropout right comes
in is the dropout right because of the pay. I mean,
even if you accept it as do people not know
when they enter these study periods that there is this
requirement and therefore the sacrifice.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think people might know, but maybe not fully understand
the kind of magnitude of it. So outside of the
work we did here, there's in other survey studies looking
at people and social work and Midwest Areian teaching where
they've talked about the number of people is financially struggling
during the semester, so when they're just taking classes, but
when they're not on placements can be something on the

(01:34):
order kind of ten percent or ten percent of students
in these professions might be financially struggling or they're taking classes,
but when they go onto placements that can increase to
sixty five to seventy five percent of students struggling. So
it really indicates that these placements and the requirements that
come along with them can be really difficult to manage
in terms of other employment opportunities in terms of jogging,

(01:54):
childcare responsibilities and all of those sorts of things that
got along with them.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Doctors, I know from my personal experience with a daughter
at mid school get it stipend in year six? Is
that the answer? Give them something and it'll help.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's definitely one of the answers. And so there's a
paid placement petition that was delivered to Parliament last year
which was advertating for paid training, to pay a training
wage throughout the course of the studies and just a reference.
That's not a radical idea. In fact, Australia's actually implemented
something very similar starting in this year on twenty twenty five,

(02:27):
where they're paying people in these professions three hundred and
twenty dollars a week while they're on placements.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Nice to talk to you, Laighton Watson, who's the lead
author of that particular report. You do get the highest salary.
It takes fourteen years, a nursing takes fourteen years and
your quit zin. So there's the big picture of view
of matters. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast listen
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