The literature on unpaid work in ecology/STEM is growing, and I’ll try to keep this updated as a resource for folks who want to find all this great work.

Bailey KM, Hooker KR, Loggins AA, Potash AD, Hardeman Jr. DW, McCleery RA It pays to get paid: Factors influencing wildlife-related employment success. Wildlife Society Bulletin n/a(n/a):e1252.

Osiecka AN, Quer S, Wróbel A, Osiecka-Brzeska K (2021) Unpaid Work in Marine Science: A Snapshot of the Early-Career Job Market. Frontiers in Marine Science 8.

Alex J Jensen, Sara P Bombaci, Laura C Gigliotti, Stephen N Harris, Courtney J Marneweck, Mike S Muthersbaugh, Blaise A Newman, Shari L Rodriguez, Elizabeth A Saldo, Kyle E Shute, Keifer L Titus, Amanda L Williams, Sze Wing Yu, David S Jachowski, Attracting Diverse Students to Field Experiences Requires Adequate Pay, Flexibility, and Inclusion, BioScience, Volume 71, Issue 7, July 2021, Pages 757–770, 10.1093/biosci/biab039

Holford, Angus, Access to and Returns from Unpaid Graduate Internships. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10845, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2998954 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2998954

Fournier AMV, Holford AJ, Bond AL, Leighton MA (2019) Unpaid work and access to science professions. PLOS ONE 14(6):e0217032.

Fournier AMV, Bond AL (2015) Volunteer field technicians are bad for wildlife ecology. Wildlife Society Bulletin 39(4):819–821.

Colton, Hilary. (2022). The Price of Experience: An examination of zoo and aquarium internships. American Association of Zoo Keepers 49: 100-105