It's almost impossible to give a meaningful answer to the first question. Asking people doesn't really answer the question because the meaningful version of the

It's almost impossible to give a meaningful answer to the first question. Asking people doesn't really answer the question because the meaningful version of the question is a nuanced counterfactual that would never really be asked in surveys. Lots of people would want to be professors under the right circumstances. If you make a career path that's needlessly precarious and and the only people who "want" to risk trying to have that kind of career are privileged people, then you could just throw up your hands and say "well I guess no one else wants to be a professor," or you could be honest about what people's motivations are and try to create a more humane system.