Abstract

This article examines sex segregation in Italian universities. The overall level and the detailed qualitative pattern of sex segregation are assessed by means of loglinear models, applied to the Reflex data. Although previous work has primarily focused on the divide between humanistic and scientific fields, this study indicates that this divide accounts for only part of the observed pattern of sex segregation. The degree of gender imbalance is highly variable within scientific fields, as well as as within humanistic fields. This is because a second, equally important gender divide is at work: it can be described ad the care-technical divide. Moreover, the analysis also points to an overall stability of sex segregation in recent decades in Itay. Finally, the level and the pattern of sex segragation in this country do not differ from those observed in other European countries. Taken together, these results suggest that cultural forces underlying gender segregation are highly resilient, not least because they are sustained by a number of structural developments in education and labor market institutions.