Gender Inequalities and Precarious Work–Life Balance in Italian Academia: Emergency Remote Work and Organizational Change During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Annalisa Dordoni ()
Additional contact information
Annalisa Dordoni: Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, 8, 20126 Milan, Italy

Social Sciences, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and intensified structural tensions surrounding work−life balance, precarity, and gender inequalities in academia. This paper examines the spatial, temporal, and emotional disruptions experienced by early-career and precarious researchers in Italy during the first national lockdown (March–April 2020) and their engagement in remote academic work. Adopting an exploratory and qualitative approach, the study draws on ten narrative video interviews and thirty participant-generated images to investigate how structural dimensions—such as gender, class, caregiving responsibilities, and the organizational culture of the neoliberal university—shaped these lived experiences. The findings highlight the implosion of boundaries between paid work, care, family life, and personal space and how this disarticulation exacerbated existing inequalities, particularly for women and caregivers. By interpreting both visual and narrative data through a sociological lens on gender, work, and organizations, the paper contributes to current debates on the transformation of academic labor and the reshaping of temporal work regimes through the everyday use of digital technologies in contemporary neoliberal capitalism. It challenges the individualization of discourses on productivity and flexibility and calls for gender-sensitive, structurally informed policies that support equitable and sustainable transitions in work and family life, in line with European policy frameworks.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; gender inequalities; social class; work−life balance; neoliberal university; academic precariousness; temporal work regimes; working time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/8/471/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/8/471/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:14:y:2025:i:8:p:471-:d:1712283

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().