Are Men Given Priority for Top Jobs? Investigating the Glass Ceiling in Italian Academia

We investigate the gender gap in academic promotions, focusing on the Italian system, in which candidates first participate in a nationwide competition to obtain a scientific qualification and then successful candidates compete to obtain a position at the department level.We estimate the gender gaps in the probability of success at these two stages, controlling for several measures of productivity. Whereas no gender differences emerge at the national level, women have a lower probability of promotion at the department level. Robustness checks suggest that estimated gender gaps are not results of measurement errors.