EXIT STRATEGIES NELLE CARRIERE ACCADEMICHE STEM DA UNA PROSPETTIVA DI GENERE E INTERSEZIONALE

In this paper, we investigate the options and strategies related to a possible abandonment of the academic career by male and female STEM researchers in early stages from a gender and intersectional perspective (Crenshaw, 1989; Romero, 2023). Despite the (albeit slow) growth of women in academic careers, they remain under-represented in top roles, but also in access to tenure track positions (Picardi, 2019), and they drop out of academic careers more often (Alper, 1993). There are many reasons that can lead to leaving academia: loss of enthusiasm (Askins, 2008), difficulty in reconciling academic work and family care (Basset, 2005), economic insecurity and precariousness in the early stages of a career that can last a long time (Murgia and Poggio, 2018). Starting from these considerations, this paper highlights the strategies to resist in an increasingly uncertain, precarious, demanding context and the strategies to cope with a possible exit from academia; we will look at the reasons that push towards the abandonment of this career, the options considered viable, the states of mind with which they are evaluated by women and men, considering their family and socio-economic conditions. To this end we will examine 32 interviews conducted within the framework of the PRIN “GeA-Gendering Academia” with precarious male and female researchers working in four Italian universities.