This study examined how supervision allowances, supervisory load and student–supervisor co-authorship interacted in the academic labour and promotion of university lecturers in Uganda. A mixed-methods crosssectional design was used. Questionnaire data were collected from 217 lecturers in four universities, and 15 lecturers, heads of department and graduate school officials were interviewed. Lecturers supervised an average of 21.1 students per year, and the load rose most for junior staff at undergraduate level and for senior staff at doctoral level. Supervision allowances were rated low in adequacy (mean = 2.04) and timeliness (mean = 2.31), while the contribution of supervision to promotion was rated high (mean = 3.78). Most lecturers (72.8%) had co-authored with a student in the previous three years, and 56.7% had initiated such co-authorship to meet promotion requirements. Promotion pressure, supervisory load and allowance adequacy together explained 46% of the variation in reliance on student co-authorship, with promotion pressure the strongest predictor (β = .41). The study concluded that co-authorship functioned as an informal payment in kind for under-compensated supervision, and that this raised concerns about equity and authorship integrity. It recommended adequate and timely allowances, workload recognition for supervision and transparent authorship practices.