Wil Hunt, of the University of Portsmouth, surveyed 615 British graduates between two to six years after they finished degrees in design, art and communications and found that one in four had done a paid or unpaid internship after leaving university.
He will tell the British Sociological Association’s conference on work, employment and society conference in Leeds today [Tuesday 6 September] that 72% of design, art and communications graduates had found a graduate level occupation.
This rose to 84% among those who had done a paid internship, but among those who had done unpaid internships the figure was 75%, little better than for non-interns.
Mr Hunt also found that when comparing those who had been interns with other graduates with the same degree grade and from the same kind of university, unpaid internships were linked to lower pay – around £16,000 a year, compared with £18,000 for graduates who had not done one. Paid internships did increase salaries, he found.
Mr Hunt said the findings were “particularly concerning” as official data on 2011/12 graduates showed that 70% of their internships in creative industries were unpaid.
“This finding is particularly concerning as unpaid internships were found to be more common than previously thought and because there was evidence that those from less well-off backgrounds were less able to access the better, paid internships,” said Mr Hunt.
“Graduates with no family experience of university – who tend to come from lower socio-economic classes – were less likely to have done the paid internships that boost the chance of a graduate-level job.
“It is generally assumed that paying interns helps level the playing field for less well-off graduates but the evidence here challenges these assumptions.”
