Gender Budgeting in Italian Universities

Although the literature has extensively investigated the reasons for inequalities in the academic field, few contributions analyze the strategic role of gender budgeting as a reporting and planning tool for gender policies regarding equality. Given that, the purpose of this chapter is to analyze the state of the art of gender budgeting in a sample of Italian public universities to highlight the potential that gender budgeting can have from a gender equality perspective. To achieve this goal, the authors intend to answer the following research questions: What is the state of the art of the incidence of gender in the composition of Italian universities (students, postgraduates, research fellows, teaching staff, technical-administrative staff and directors)? What are the positive actions taken by Italian universities in gender budgeting to improve gender equality? What is the level of integration between the positive actions favoring gender equality and the planning of the financial resources necessary to carry out these actions in the gender budgets of the sample considered? This paper aims at expanding the international literature about the connection between gender studies and academic context. Our literature review emphasizes the topic analyzed as an emerging issue, which allows us to identify new trends and future directions for research. The major implication of the paper is to increase knowledge and practice in the area of balance gender in the academic contest. The relevant evidence of the chapter consists of a better understanding of gender budgeting as a concrete tool for planning positive actions to improve gender equality in Italian universities.