Reframing vertical gender segregation in academia

In neoliberal academia, women are still significantly underrepresented not only in early career stages, but also in full professorships and leadership positions. The paper focuses on career advancement gender gaps in Italy. It discusses the gender dimension of the parenthood penalty in academia, in research and teaching, and approaches to policies for reducing gender asymmetries in the university system. The study is based on 64 in-depth interviews with associate professors (32 female and 32 male) working in STEM and SSH departments in four Italian universities. It shows how associate professors reconstruct and explain their career progression, and the events and the processes that they believe have helped or hindered their advance to full professorships at individual, organizational and institutional level. Findings suggest that vertical segregation processes are at work in such gendered organizational contexts as universities, but also that women’s ability to enact strategies of individual resistance or “success” as part of wider coping strategies to overcome gender disparity hinges on whether or not the organization takes positive action and implements gender equality plans. The analysis offers insights into how gender inequalities manifest themselves even in career consolidation processes, over a period marked by crucial institutional changes in the Italian university system.