Care and Career Among Academic Fathers in Times of Crisis

Care work during emergency situations like the COVID-19 lockdowns increases among working parents, including academics. While research on academic mothers’ experiences has been extensive, evidence on academic fathers remains scarce and mixed. However, as highly educated men often lead gender-egalitarian shifts, academic fathers—among the most educated—may represent forerunners of ‘new’ fatherhood. During school closures and the breakdown of (in)formal care systems, academic fathers offer a critical case for both challenging hegemonic masculinity and revealing institutional barriers to caregiving. This study examines how academic fathers in Italy—a country low in gender equality rankings—navigated work and caregiving during the pandemic. Using an exploratory qualitative approach, we conducted 23 interviews with Italian academic heterosexual fathers across career stages and disciplines. Findings reveal emerging care-oriented experiences, but also persistent cultural and organizational resistances. The involved father model appears as a temporary, flickering discourse, activated and accepted mainly under exceptional conditions. The findings can inform the development of institutional policies and organizational practices.