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Can I be a good scientist and a good mother? This haunting question shapes the lives of many academic women.
This book examines the double-lock linking maternity and academic careers in contemporary Italy: how motherhood—and even its anticipation—shapes recruitment, evaluation and stabilization, and how academic competitiveness and precarity, in turn, reshape fertility choices and timing.
Drawing on narrative interviews with two generations of scholars and engaging with international literature, it shows how institutional cultures and gendered expectations reinforce structural constraints while normalizing unequal trade-offs. It identifies pathways to rethink academic careers so that excellence and parenthood can coexist.
'Mothering and Motherhood in Academia is a vital text for anyone working in this area in Italy and the broader European context.' Anne O'Brien, Maynooth University
Concetta Russo is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Guglielmo Marconi.
Alessandra Minello is Assistant Professor in Demography at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padua.
Introduction
1. Academic Careers and Fertility
2. Motherhood and Self-Identity
3. The Labour of Mothering vs the Mothers’ Labour
4. Breaking the Glass Ceiling and Overcoming the Maternal Wall: Gender Disparities in Academic Careers
5. Becoming Academic Mothers: Challenges and Contexts
6. Mothering Academia: Between Precariousness and New Parental Roles
7. Nurturing Equality
Conclusion