Italian Doctorate Holders and Academic Career. Progression in the Period 1986-2015 (original) (raw)

The determinants of academic career advancement: Evidence from Italy

Science and Public Policy, 2015

In this work we investigate the determinants of professors' career advancement in Italian universities. From the analyses, it emerges that the fundamental determinant of an academic candidate's success is not scientific merit, but rather the number of years that the candidate has belonged to the same university as the selection committee president. Where applicants have participated in research work with the president, their probability of success also increases significantly. The factors of the years of service and occurrence of joint research for the other commission members also have an effect, however of lesser weight. The specific phenomenon of nepotism, although it exists, seems less important. The scientific quality of the commission members has negligible effect on the expected outcome of the competition, and even more so the geographic location of the university calling for the competition.

The Gendered Shaping of Academic Career in Italy. A Case Study

2016

The promotion of effective gender equality has represented a strategic goal of European policies over recent years. Although significant progresses have been made, gender differentials still characterize the labor markets, as well as other domains of life, in various European countries. The objective of this study is to investigate gender differences in career trajectories in the Italian academic environment. As a case study we focus on the University of Florence. Data come from a specific survey on family and academic careers carried out on both permanent and temporary academic staff of the University of Florence. All in all, we found that the careers trajectories at the University of Florence are gendered shaping. In particular, beside an equal gender distribution in the first stages of academic career, we found a gender gap in the progression toward higher roles – i.e., Associate and Full Professor positions. We did not find evidence that this gender gap is attributable to indivi...

New career advancement patterns in Italian universities: productivity, age and ranks of positions

2015

The new Habilitation, established in Italy in 2010 and launched in 2012, was introduced to filter eligible candidates in the competition for associate and full professorships. Its purpose is to limit agreements between colleagues to make academic appointments on the basis of patronage and instead set minimum conditions based on scholarly output. This study draws on a national dataset in four disciplinary fields – Physics; Engineering; Law; Economics: two being bibliometric and two non-bibliometric. The main hypothesis is that a candidate’s current position and seniority (years after last promotion) should play no part in determining the award of the Habilitation. Only indicators of output should be considered by committees. After controlling for such indicators as publications, affiliation with committee members, age, gender, current position and time since last promotion, data show better predictors of attaining the habilitation to be: 1) quality of scientific output (H index and a...

Publish or Perish: An Analysis of the Academic Job Market in Italy

2014

We derive a theoretical model of effort in the presence of career concern based on the multi-unit all-pay auction, and closely inspired by the Italian academic market. In this model, the number of applicants, the number of new posts, and the relative importance of the determinants of promotion determine academics' effort. Because of the specific characteristics of Italian universities, where incentives operate only through promotion, and where all appointment panels are drawn from strictly separated and relatively narrow scientific sectors, the model fits well Italian academia, and we test it in a newly constructed dataset which collects the journal publications of all Italian academics working in universities. We find that individual researchers respond to incentives in the manner predicted by the theoretical model: more capable researchers respond to increases in the importance of the measurable determinants of promotion and in the competitiveness of the scientific sector by e...

Italian Ph.D. holders and mismatch in education and skills

Advances in Methodology and Statistics, 2017

Ph.D. education is a key element in innovation and the generation of new knowledge. Nevertheless, in Italy, the share of doctoral graduates is still lower than the average for OECD member countries. This paper investigates the effectiveness of doctoral education and the extent to which the Italian labour market properly absorbs the rising flow of Ph.D. holders. The effectiveness is assessed from the twofold perspective of the formal relevance of a Ph.D. qualification in the labour market and the substantial applicability of skills acquired to different occupations inside and outside university. Logit models enable sketches of the main determinants of overeducation and overskilling among Italian Ph.D.'s, whereas log-earnings equations allow assessment of the role of educational and skills mismatches in terms of wage penalties. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions help analyse some causes of these mismatches. The different patterns of overeducation and overskilling among Ph.D. holders wo...

Geographical analysis of the academic brain drain in Italy

Scientometrics, 2012

To study the behavior of Italian researchers living in Italy with a view to creating appropriate policies to tackle the brain drain and discourage academics from emigrating, we constructed a survey based on a sample of 4700 Italian researchers (assistant professors) in several universities in Italy. The outlook is far from rosy: Italian researchers are generally dissatisfied with the economic and social situation of the country. Strong family ties represent the element keeping them at home in Italy. In this regard, no particular differences were noted between the North and South of the country. In analyzing the Italian academic system we identified factors that have greater weight in driving Italian intellectual talent to emigrate: the country's higher education system leaves all dissatisfied. Furthermore, we discovered other factors that, albeit weak, keep Italian researchers in Italy. However, one wonders how much longer family and national ties will be able to keep Italian skilled agents in Italy, and whether such dissatisfaction may jeopardize the country's future economic development.

Investigating PhDs’ early career occupational outcomes in Italy: individual motivations, role of supervisor and gender differences

Higher Education

The paper examines how individual motivations, the role of the supervisor and gender influence the early career path of doctorate holders. We investigate PhD graduates’ occupational outcomes beyond academia in the framework of current literature on the oversupply of PhD holders and labor market constraints. Our analysis relies on two unique datasets. The first, at the national level, includes microdata from the Italian National Institute of Statistics regarding about 41,000 graduates who account for over 70% of the population of 6 cohorts surveyed for the period 2004–2014. The other dataset is from a single university, and resulted from an original survey of 760 PhD holders who earned their doctorates from the University of Turin in 2007–2017. We find that PhD holders’ motivation towards science is associated with their subsequent employment in academia or in other research and non-research jobs. Sponsoring support in early career and the supervisor’s propensity for basic research a...

Between gendered doors and leaky pipeline. Higher education policies and career patterns of men and women in Italian universities

Our paper aims at analysing the relationship between higher educational policies and career patterns of men and women professors in Italian universities. It is divided into two sections. In the first part we present an overview of Italian higher education policies in relation to the recruitment and the career progressions of the academics and we explain the way in which nowadays the recruiting and promotion process takes place, discussing both the formal and informal processes which regulate career advancements. In the second section we present data on the presence of women professors in Italian university. We argue that the greater presence of women in the lowest rank of the university hierarchy can be hardly ascribed only to structural dynamics (different timing in entry the university career) or individual factors (different university productivity and activities). We rather conclude that some of the possible reasons which could justify the differences in the career patterns of m...

Just a Matter of Time? Women’s Career Advancement in Neo-Liberal Academia. An Analysis of Recruitment Trends in Italian Universities

Social Sciences

Recently, the Italian higher education system has experienced two profound changes: the strong feminization of its academic staff and the implementation of market-based reforms aimed at fostering cost efficiency and economic productivity. Such reforms include the reshaping of the academic career ladder envisaged by the last university reform, the so called Gelmini reform (law 240/2010), and the adoption of a performance-based funding system. Both elements occurred in parallel with a strong cut in turnover. By accessing unique data on recruitment covering the last two decades, which were provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research’s statistical office, this study aims at investigating these changes from a gendered perspective. More specifically, it firstly aims at analyzing if the feminization of the academic staff is due to an effective improvement of gender equality in recruitment or, rather, to demographic dynamics; secondly, it investigates to wh...