1. Introduction
The intensification of precarious work in Italy has profoundly shaped workers’ lives across various sectors, including academia. Global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated in-work poverty, social exclusion, and anxieties related to balancing work and caregiving responsibilities, and institutional gaps in labor laws and organizational practices perpetuate instability, driving demographic shifts like declining birth rates and fostering a culture of uncertainty and extreme competition. In academia, early-career researchers face precarious conditions characterized by unstable contracts, limited funding, and intense competition, which hinders long-term planning and contributes to systemic inequality (
Carreri and Dordoni 2020). Influenced by market deregulation and New Public Management principles, the neoliberal university reinforces these dynamics through the use of temporary contracts, funding pressures, and performance metrics, while perpetuating an unrealistic ideal of a work−life balance (
Dordoni and Anzivino 2022).
As Acker pointed out and as is now well established in the field of gender, work, and organizational studies (
Jeanes et al. 2012), organizational structures are not gender-neutral but are built upon deeply embedded gendered assumptions. The concept of a disembodied, universal and even “ideal” worker, as well as the notion of excellence as a universal and gender-neutral standard of merit (
Van den Brink and Benschop 2012), conceals the male norm that underlies gendered processes, contributing to the persistence of control, segregation, and exclusion and reinforcing male dominance in hierarchical workplaces (
Acker 1988,
1990,
1992,
2012).
In outlining her conceptualization of organizations as gendered processes, in 1990, Acker observed the following: “New approaches to the study of waged work, particularly studies of the labor process, see organizations as gendered, not as gender neutral (…) and conceptualize organizations as one of the locations of the inextricably intertwined production of both gender and class relations (…). The structure of the labor market, relations in the workplace, the control of the work process, and the underlying wage relation are always affected by symbols of gender, processes of gender identity, and material inequalities between women and men” (pp. 145–46).
This paper examines the intersections between precarious work, gender, and work−life balance, with a focus on the experiences of precarious academic researchers during the initial COVID-19 lockdown. Adopting an exploratory and qualitative approach, the study analyzes 10 narrative video interviews and 30 photos from young Italian academics working from home during the first lockdown (March–April 2020). The findings reveal how the pandemic magnified the permeability of public and private spheres, challenging traditional binary notions of work and family life. The analysis highlights how disarticulating spatial, temporal, and relational boundaries affects researchers based on gender, social class, and family composition, deepening inequalities in work−life−care experiences, productivity, and personal relationships. By rejecting the view of work−life balance as an individual choice and underlining, on the contrary, the importance of organizational structures and processes that take into account diversity, inclusion, as well as working conditions, the study underscores the need to address the intertwined challenges of work precariousness and gender inequality in neoliberal academia.
Research results show that further reflection is needed at the policy level to promote well-being and contrast gender asymmetries and discrimination that create a context of anxiety and stress in the workplace, particularly for female academics. This kind of organizational context makes research and teaching activities difficult and impacts the entire organization and the higher education system, including university students.
These findings call for a renewed political and policy-oriented reflection on the structural conditions that shape work−life balance, particularly within academic and knowledge-intensive professions. Suppose gender is understood not merely as an individual identity or social role but as a structuring dimension of economic and organizational life. In that case, policies aimed at promoting equality and sustainability must go beyond individualized solutions, such as the so-called claims to resilience (which often imply enduring rather than transforming), time management (conceptualized as an individual rather than collective and organizational responsibility), and flexibility (frequently invoked without absolute autonomy). Instead, interventions should address the structural and organizational foundations that reproduce inequality.
This approach aligns with international and European policy frameworks, including Goal 5 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, which promotes gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, as well as the guidance developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) and other EU institutions. In particular, the implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) has become a key tool across the European Research Area, aiming to institutionalize change through concrete measures related to recruitment, career progression, leadership, work−life balance, and the integration of the gender dimension into research and teaching. These plans, especially when combined with broader strategies such as gender audits and gender-sensitive budgeting, represent an opportunity to embed gender equality into the core structure and governance of academic institutions.
In the Italian context, the recent introduction of the Gender Equality Certification (Certificazione della parità di genere), regulated by national laws and based on the definition of guidelines for the certification of gender equality and related incentives for companies that successfully conclude the certification process., further supports this direction. It provides a national mechanism to assess and reward organizations that implement concrete structural changes across multiple dimensions—from career development and leadership representation to parental support policies and inclusive organizational cultures.
Several universities in Italy have already begun to adopt measures aligned with these goals. These include structured mentoring programs to support women’s careers, particularly in STEM fields; efforts to increase gender balance in decision-making roles; public initiatives and educational programs on gender and caregiving, such as seminars focused on fatherhood and the shared distribution of care responsibilities; and the establishment of practical support services such as breastfeeding areas and on-campus childcare facilities. These initiatives demonstrate how gender equality can be pursued not only through declarations of principle but through embedded, measurable, and accountable organizational practices.
The experiences of temporal fragmentation, overload, and care inequality documented in this study underscore the urgency of gender-sensitive, structurally informed policy strategies that critically rethink the organization of academic labor, the temporal regimes of productivity, and the value of care as a public good. As some universities are already beginning to demonstrate, such rethinking is necessary not only to support individuals—especially women and caregivers—but to promote more equitable, sustainable, and socially responsible models of work and life within the university and beyond.
2. Theoretical Framework
A growing body of research has examined work–life balance, work–family conflict, and the management of work–family boundaries (
Ashforth et al. 2000;
Clark 2000), focusing on how individuals create—or struggle to create—clear separations between work and other domains of life. These boundaries may take the form of segmentation, integration, or more fluid and dynamic arrangements (
Kossek 2016). While the literature has shed light on how individuals navigate the gap between preferred and actual boundary practices, it has yet to fully engage with the power dynamics and structural conditions that shape these everyday experiences (
Hughes and Silver 2020). The scientific debate on work–life balance also needs to be situated within broader axes of gender, class, generation, and intersectional inequalities, as well as the presence of children, particularly in the case of female academics (
Carreri et al. 2022).
In particular, gender, social class, and family composition play crucial roles in shaping how individuals experience the disarticulation of boundaries between work and life. These structural drivers often intersect with individual experiences, influencing how people negotiate their time and space. For example, women in academia, especially those with caregiving responsibilities, face additional challenges in maintaining these boundaries, particularly during the pandemic due to increased gender inequalities caused by the closing of schools and the higher degree of care pressure on mothers and women during lockdowns (
Alon et al. 2020;
Collins et al. 2020;
Craig and Churchill 2020). Gender and class differences are particularly pronounced in early career stages, with female academics often struggling to balance work and care responsibilities, which can also impact their career progression (
Myers et al. 2020;
Minello et al. 2020;
Yildirim and Eslen-Ziya 2020).
Work–life balance discourses often obscure the structural foundations of inequality by framing the issue in terms of personal choice and self-management, thereby neglecting the interlocking economic-organizational and gendered structures that shape individuals’ capacities to navigate work, life, and care. From a socioeconomic perspective, gender disparities can be understood as cultural aspects and structural dimensions, as embedded within systemic configurations—what
Rubin (
1975) defines as sex-gender system and
Connell (
2016) as the gender order—that organize social life, institutional arrangements, and the distribution of labor and resources within academia. These structures shape not only access to time and resources but also institutional norms about availability, productivity, and commitment, sustaining inequality through routinized practices and expectations.
The neoliberal transformation of academia has compounded these challenges. Neoliberal policies have transformed the academic world into a market-oriented system, leading to increased job insecurity, competition, and performance pressures (
Currie et al. 2000;
Poggio 2018;
Steinþórsdóttir et al. 2017). These policies not only heighten workload but also foster a culture of hyper-productivity that demands greater autonomy for academics to integrate paid work, care work, and personal life. Work demands encroach on personal time, making it challenging to establish the necessary boundaries to maintain well-being (
Bloom 2016;
Thomas and Davies 2002).
In academia, the ideal worker model remains structured around the figure of the unconditional worker—perpetually available, geographically mobile, and unburdened by care responsibilities—as
Acker (
2012) notes. This figure is not only culturally valorized but also structurally embedded in institutional expectations and definitions of merit and excellence (
Van den Brink and Benschop 2012). Although some reduction in gender disparities has been observed in recent years, this model remains evident in the outcomes of formal evaluation metrics (
Dordoni and Anzivino 2022). Despite its ostensibly gender-neutral appearance, it reproduces a masculinized work norm aligned with a life course marked by uninterrupted availability and linear career progression. It systematically privileges those whose social position enables full adherence to these expectations while structurally disadvantaging those whose trajectories deviate from this norm. In this way, institutionalized patterns of recognition, reward, and progression continue to reproduce gendered hierarchies, with caregiving responsibilities being one of the most relevant factors contributing to unequal positioning.
The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a stress test for these intersecting structures, exacerbating existing inequalities and exposing the fragility of work–life boundaries for those with caregiving responsibilities—particularly mothers. The reorganization of academic labor into the domestic sphere unfolded along pre-existing lines shaped by the gendered division of labor. As noted by
Dunatchik et al. (
2021), the rise of remote work during the pandemic did not significantly alter the domestic division of labor. As domestic and care work intensified during lockdowns, it became increasingly evident that the academic system is built upon the assumption of a worker unburdened by social reproduction. The pandemic illuminated how gender functions not as an individual trait or cultural variable, but as a structural dimension of academic work—one that unequally distributes time, visibility, and recognition, often in invisible and naturalized ways. It underscored the need to move beyond individualized notions of balance and toward a transformation of the institutional and structural logics that sustain gendered inequalities within academia.
3. Research Methodology
The research adopts a qualitative approach, employing non-directive techniques. Qualitative research is “a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretative, material practices that make the world visible” (
Denzin and Lincoln 2000, p. 3). This approach allows researchers to obtain “a deeper and richer picture of what is going on in particular settings”, even with few participants (
Goodwin and Horowitz 2002, p. 44). As argued by Crouch and McKenzie, “It is much more important for the research to be intensive, and thus persuasive at the conceptual level, rather than aim to be extensive with intent to be convincing, at least in part, through enumeration” (
Crouch and McKenzie 2006, p. 494).
During Italy’s first COVID-19 lockdown, a snowball sample of precarious researchers in the social sciences and humanities (SSHs) was recruited. The selection included participants from different regions (North, Centre, and South of Italy) and a variety of precarious positions within Italian academia (such as postdoctoral researchers and research fellows).
This sector represents a privileged vantage point for examining the work-from-home experience during the initial wave of the pandemic. Firstly, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, SSH scholars widely utilized digital tools and remote work practices. Furthermore, this labor market segment is characterized by a significant, whether real or perceived, degree of organizational autonomy. Lastly, intense pressures for high productivity and the widespread use of temporary contracts, both of which deeply affect everyday life, shape it. Specifically, 10 in-depth narrative video interviews were conducted online with early-career and precarious Italian researchers (see
Carreri and Dordoni 2020).
The interviews were conducted remotely via Skype or other similar platforms between June and July 2020. All interviews were recorded, fully transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative data analysis software MaxQDA (VERBI Software, 2019). Following an initial individual analysis, the coding and interpretation were carried out independently. While online interviews differ from face-to-face interactions, they can be a valuable alternative for synchronous communication when in-person meetings are not feasible due to external constraints (
Janghorban et al. 2014). One limitation of such technological tools is the reduced sense of intimacy and connection between the interviewer and interviewee. Nevertheless, when in-person encounters require masks and physical distancing, platforms like Skype represent a preferable solution. Although the use of private communication technologies raises critical ethical considerations, the potential drawbacks can be mitigated, as in this study, by obtaining informed consent and ensuring that all recordings are deleted from the platform immediately after the interview is completed.
Furthermore, the “participant-generated image” visual technique (
Pauwels and Mannay 2020) was employed, and thirty images regarding the academic sector were added as empirical material to the ten narrative in-depth interviews previously collected. This visual material was part of a larger research study that analyzed seventy images provided by workers in various sectors who were working from home during the first Italian lockdown, from March to May 2020. Participants were asked to upload an image or photo on a web platform that “represents the working from home experience during the lockdown” and to fill in a short questionnaire to explain the reasons for choosing their photos and provide socio-demographic information. The participants self-selected voluntarily after receiving public participation requests shared through social media. Data collection was closed on 18 May, as labor activities resumed in person on that day, and workers returned to their offices and universities. The empirical material consisted of interview excerpts and the text about the motivation the participants gave for selecting the image or photo they uploaded to the web platform.
The visual approach adopted in this study facilitates a deeper understanding of participants’ experiences without influencing their perception of reality. It brings to light dimensions that often remain inaccessible through verbal interviews alone (
Harper 2002), particularly by challenging the conventional public/private divide (
De Coster and Zanoni 2019). The methodological significance of this research is further strengthened by the integration of visual methods—specifically, participant-generated images and what is referred to in anthropology as native image making—alongside digital tools for data collection. While information technology can influence social research in both positive and negative ways—such as by reshaping the dynamics of the interviewer–interviewee relationship in face-to-face versus online contexts (
Hanna 2012;
Lo Iacono et al. 2016), in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic required the entire research process to be conducted virtually from the researchers’ homes.
The data were collected between March and April 2020, during the first national lockdown in Italy. It is essential to note that this was a particularly exceptional phase, during which mobility was legally restricted and citizens were required to remain at home, except for basic needs. Only those whose work could be performed remotely, primarily through digital technologies, were allowed to continue their professional activities from home. These strict and uniform conditions created a unique framework for exploring the intersections of work, care, and personal life. Although the study offers insights that resonate with broader discussions on work–life balance and remote work, the empirical material reflects a very particular socio-historical context that necessarily shapes the experiences and narratives collected.
4. Results
4.1. “A Sort of Real Invasion of My Private Life” in “Interminable Working Days”
The analysis of data collected during the lockdown highlights how remote working measures were introduced as emergency responses, without prior planning or structured implementation by organizations. Nonetheless, the dynamics that emerged under these exceptional conditions provide insights that extend beyond this specific period. The first issue to address concerns working time and rhythms—specifically, the intensification of work pace, the extension of the working day, and the time−space reconfiguration that led to the intrusion of work into the private sphere.
The precarious researchers we interviewed described how their work has always involved a blurring of private and professional spheres, both in terms of time and space. The space–time disarticulation brought about by the pandemic—and still partially ongoing—has led to profound changes in the everyday lives of academics working from home. Our analysis highlights emerging modes of organizing work, care, and personal life. A widespread concern among all participants was the pressure to remain productive, particularly in terms of publishing, reflecting the persistence of an individualistic and competitive model of academic labor (
Benschop and Brouns 2003).
Those living alone during the lockdown experienced a deep sense of alienation, resulting from the intrusion of work into all aspects of daily life combined with social isolation. Previous studies conducted in other sectors of the contemporary service economy have shown that accelerated work rhythms and the erosion of personal time, particularly when coupled with emotional labor, can lead to a condition of temporal alienation (
Dordoni 2018,
2019,
2020). I have conceptualized this as a form of dispossession or alienation from one’s own time, leading to a diminished awareness of one’s position in society and a reduced capacity for agency in the social world.
In the context of remote work during the pandemic, this condition was significantly influenced by the pace of online activities, research, and teaching alike. Both male and female participants reported working continuously throughout the day, constantly responding to online demands, and struggling to carve out any time for themselves:
“Single people often have this tendency of becoming workaholics, because they have no limitations, they don’t have a kid who demands their attention, or a wife who says, “Could you…” […] The lockdown exacerbated this […] It was quite alienating, also because I am usually very socially oriented. […] It was painful for me, which is why the lockdown has been a bad experience for me, because I did not take my private time back. I sacrificed a lot of my private time”.
(M39)
Precariously employed researchers have internalized the neoliberal model of academic labor, in which work permeates and appropriates all aspects of daily life, leaving minimal space for rest, care, or disengagement (
Nowotny 2018). This condition is closely tied to the temporal logic of contemporary capitalism, where time is experienced as accelerated, fragmented and constantly mediated by digital technologies (
Wajcman 2014). Within this framework, the imperative of productivity overrides not only the recognition of human limits and boundaries but also the organizational requirements of meaningful research, which demand slower rhythms, sustained reflection, and temporal depth.
One female participant submitted a photograph that captures the co-presence of work and caregiving within the same domestic environment. In the foreground, a laptop, a cup of coffee, and printed academic materials are spread across a table, while in the background, a child plays on the floor among toys and books. The visual composition conveys the blurred spatial boundaries between professional and family life. It reflects how the home, once a space of rest and privacy, was transformed into a site of simultaneous and often conflicting demands. The image vividly illustrates what several participants described as the “invasion” of their private lives by professional obligations, which extended not only into space but also into time and attention.
A second image further emphasizes the disintegration of borders between private (personal and family) life and work life. It shows a computer screen split between a YouTube video of Peppa Pig, playing for the participant’s young daughter, and an academic article being written in Word. This juxtaposition of child entertainment and scholarly production within the same digital frame highlights the erosion of work–life boundaries in both symbolic and practical terms. The act of caring and the act of producing knowledge occur at the same interface, reinforcing the sense of cognitive overload and the impossibility of fully inhabiting either role without interruption.
These images also point to gendered dynamics, particularly those related to the experiences of academic mothers, which will be addressed in greater depth in a dedicated subsection later in the paper.
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these dynamics, amplifying the centrality of digital technologies in academic work. Rather than merely functioning as neutral tools, these platforms became the primary means through which professional, social, and personal interactions were mediated. As
Watson et al. (
2020) point out, they helped sustain forms of human connection amid physical distancing. Still, they also facilitated an unprecedented temporal intrusion of work into all hours of the day.
One participant submitted a digital artwork portraying a person sitting alone inside a smartphone, which has been transformed into a confining room. The saturated colors and the contrast between the bright external background and the internal darkness evoke a sense of emotional entrapment and digital isolation. This image metaphorically illustrates how remote work, conducted entirely through screens, can exacerbate feelings of solitude, disconnection, and psychological fatigue, particularly in the absence of institutional or collegial support. It also raises critical questions about the normalization of technologized academic productivity and its affective consequences.
Many of the precarious researchers interviewed recalled how, in the absence of spatial and temporal boundaries, working hours became indefinite and all-encompassing. The constant flow of online meetings, emails, teaching activities, and research tasks fostered a sense of uninterrupted labor and temporal saturation. As one participant described it, the day unfolded as an “interminable working day”, marked by a continuous state of availability and a profound erosion of temporal autonomy:
“I’d say the situation went a bit too far, in the sense that, apart from the usual deadlines which haven’t changed, in the meantime, I saw the overlapping of […] a series of meetings and conversations to decide how to have meetings. The increase was substantial! […] I experienced a sort of real invasion of my home, my private life, my living room, etc. by my job, because you can’t behave…—even if you’re in your house—you can’t behave the same way”.
(F45)
Beyond the experiences of living alone and precarious researchers, differences emerge based on gender, parenthood, and the availability of larger living spaces, often linked to social class. This suggests a close connection between time, space, and social class. For example, one interviewee was in a second home in the mountains with his wife and children when the lockdown began, enjoying open green spaces. In contrast, another interviewee in a large apartment without children could reorganize home spaces for work, family time, and leisure.
Some interviewees emphasized how work had invaded their domestic space, completely altering its structure. These participants described a situation where work was integrated into family life (
Ashforth et al. 2000;
Kossek et al. 2012). Domestic spaces were reconfigured to accommodate work and childcare needs, often without clear boundaries between time for work, self-care, family, and socializing. They described their work situation as “extreme”, with a workload that deprived them of personal time and space (
Nowotny 2018). Terms like “frenzy” and “crazy situation” suggest conditions of high stress in pursuing the ideal academic subject defined by performance, efficiency, flexibility, availability, and productivity (
Brunila 2016;
Knights and Clarke 2014;
De Coster and Zanoni 2019).
4.2. Overwhelmed Academic Mothers: Squeezed Between Pressures and Responsibilities
Academic mothers with precarious employment faced significant challenges in focusing on research topics, preparing lectures, and writing papers, all while managing domestic and caregiving responsibilities. Additionally, we observed how the destructuring and even disintegration of limits of working time during the pandemic and the lockdown deeply impacted well-being, with mothers reporting increased stress, anxiety, and fatigue.
Researcher mothers we interviewed expressed feeling “not independent and autonomous”, “forced to ask constantly”, and “afraid of being seen as demanding” by their partners. We argue that these feelings stemmed from the disintegration of boundaries, a consequence of the neoliberal academic model.
In the visual materials we collected, we observed reconciliation challenges and exacerbation, particularly for mothers, who faced greater burdens due to the “double presence” of caregiving and work. This was further intensified by the presence of children, who were always around during the first lockdown, even intruding into “personal” workspaces, as shown in the photos below. One image shows a mother working while caring for her very young child. Another image displays the mother’s laptop screen split between a research article and a video of a cartoon entertaining her daughter. These images highlight the “implosion” and “disintegration” of boundaries that academic mothers face during the pandemic. The explanations online were as follows:
“Multitasking exasperated. Extreme working—the furthest from being ‘smart’ and from reconciliation measures”.
(F44)
“My daughter takes up almost all of my time, and when I find time to work, I still have to think about her”.
(F37)
The analysis highlights the deep entanglement of public and private spheres, revealing how the issue of work−life balance has become increasingly urgent. The erosion of clear boundaries between work and non-work domains exposes the need to reaffirm human limits as a condition for both individual sustainability and organizational well-being. While multitasking is valorized in contemporary neoliberal work cultures, the absence of temporal and spatial boundaries risks compromising not only personal health but also the very quality of social and professional life, as well as the quality of research and teaching.
Within the academic field, these tensions were further exacerbated by the gendered inequalities embedded in the neoliberal model of university work (
Poggio 2018). The closure of schools and the enforced domestic proximity during lockdown put additional strain on everyday negotiations of space and time. The imperative of individualized efficiency and continuous performativity clashed with caregiving responsibilities. In particular, academic mothers experience a profound sense of guilt, both for not being able to dedicate as much time to their families as they would like and for falling short of their own expectations at work. They find themselves caught between two competing obligations—care and professional productivity—trapped in a perceived moral blackmail that exacerbates anxiety and stress:
“He does a lot, he’s good at it. Yet sometimes I have the feeling… maybe it’s just my problem, I don’t know… I feel like I’m asking too much. I feel like I need to ask him to help me out […] As if I’m being too demanding. In education… managing the house, the children. Sometimes I feel like this”.
(F40)
“I felt like I was constantly depending on someone, and it really tired me out. […] I always felt like I had to ask for favors to be able to work, to beg for some time to work. Being independent and autonomous is really important to me. […] This period made the issues worse […] The relationship entered a crisis. A crisis”.
(F44)
Within the neoliberal model, care is framed as an individual rather than collective responsibility and is concretely implemented through the deregulation and privatization of public social services. In a broader context of welfare retrenchment, family policies not only fail to challenge entrenched class and gender inequalities but often reproduce them in updated forms (
Ferragina 2019). These dynamics have a particularly significant impact on the lives of women who are precariously employed.
From an objective standpoint, they are required to invest more time in demonstrating productivity and sustaining high levels of performance in a work environment still shaped by masculine norms, while simultaneously shouldering the bulk of unpaid care responsibilities. From a subjective perspective, the internalization of this model intensifies the strain: the perceived inability to dedicate adequate time to either sphere generates a persistent sense of guilt and moral pressure. This double bind undermines the quality of both working and caregiving time, which are increasingly experienced as sources of tension, anxiety, and dissatisfaction, ultimately eroding the sustainability and livability of both domains.
Some interviews raised concerns about the inefficiency of public policies, such as the controversial babysitter bonus introduced in Italy for working mothers who are forced to care for their children due to the closure of schools while working from home. Due to these policies’ shortcomings, caregiving often fell to mothers or female family networks (mothers, grandmothers, and sisters) during the lockdown.
“Care work couldn’t possibly be shared because my husband worked throughout the lockdown. […] I don’t have family in Milan, and neither does my husband, so I asked my mum to come visit us and stay for a bit […] I was lucky that my mum got stuck in Milan […] for about a week. Around ten days later, my sister came to stay with us for a month […] I needed help […] One thing I thought was very unfair was the way the babysitter’s bonus was organized. At first, they made it seem like you’d get loads of money… but it was only €600, a one-off. It’s a paltry amount for someone who needs to pay for a babysitter”.
(F38)
Although the pandemic coincided with a reported increase in fathers’ involvement in domestic and caregiving tasks, reflecting a broader, long-term trend (
Ruspini and Crespi 2016), the burden of care, household responsibilities, and mental load continued to fall disproportionately on mothers and, in many cases, intensified. This pattern has been widely confirmed by recent studies (
Collins et al. 2020;
Craig and Churchill 2020;
Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir 2020). The responsibility for coordinating and managing everyday family life remained primarily on women’s shoulders, resulting in heightened stress, frustration, and a pervasive sense of guilt linked to the perceived failure to meet the demands of both caregiving and academic work. As two mothers recounted,
“I also had to deal with a sense of guilt and regret. […] It’s not ‘smart working’ [working from home in Italy is called and regulated as ‘smart working’]… It’s not ‘smart’ […] I found myself being a researcher, a preschool educator—which, believe me, is the last job I would want—a primary school teacher, and I felt like I was doing everything poorly. […] A huge mental load, even online food shopping felt like a chore! Maybe others managed better, but for me, it was… On a scale of 1 to 10 for difficulty and overload, I’d say 10. It was very high”.
(F44)
“From 20 February to 4 May, I was confined at home with the kids. It was a tough period, I must say, very intense. […] We couldn’t ask anyone to help with the kids or housework. It was very intense for me”.
(F40)
Moreover, the mothers we interviewed reported assuming a larger share of domestic and caregiving tasks than fathers, particularly in supporting their children’s online schooling during the pandemic—a dynamic also observed in other studies (
Guy and Arthur 2020). These unequal conditions had a detrimental effect on the productivity of academic women with caregiving responsibilities (
Myers et al. 2020;
Minello et al. 2020;
Yildirim and Eslen-Ziya 2020).
The condition of academic mothers during the lockdown emerged as particularly intense and emotionally saturated. The pressures of productivity overlapped with constant caregiving demands, producing a state of physical and mental exhaustion. These representations resonate with the images discussed in the previous section, where we saw children physically sharing the workspace or interrupting it through screens and toys. Taken together, these visual narratives foreground the gendered dimension of remote academic labor, in which the responsibility for managing care often fell disproportionately on women, reinforcing long-standing inequalities in the distribution of invisible, emotional, and domestic labor.
As other studies have shown—such as those by
Cannito and Scavarda (
2020) and
Fares et al. (
2021)—remote work tends to reinforce the unequal distribution of responsibilities, often resulting in an increased burden for women. Research findings across different contexts indicate that the presence of children is a key factor contributing to a more demanding work-from-home experience for women. In particular, mothers frequently report heightened difficulties in managing the overlap between professional and caregiving responsibilities, expressing ongoing concerns about maintaining a sustainable work−life balance and exercising agency in boundary work.
This imbalance is also reflected in the visual material submitted by male participants who are fathers: very few included images related to caregiving or the presence of children. Only in a small number of cases did fathers explicitly choose to represent their involvement in care work or mention their children during interviews, suggesting emerging shifts in masculinity—particularly in relation to fatherhood. Nevertheless, the overall absence of such imagery among male respondents underscores the persistence of unequal gendered expectations and divisions of labor.
Importantly, the effects of these work arrangements during the pandemic may extend into the post-pandemic phase, ultimately impacting the long-term career progression of academic women with children—especially those in precarious employment. More than ever, the pandemic has exposed what
Fraser (
2016) and
Thomason and Macias-Alonso (
2020) describe as a “crisis of care”. Fraser defines this as a central contradiction of neoliberal capitalism, whereby the commodification of labor and the erosion of welfare institutions have intensified the demand for care, while simultaneously undermining the social and material conditions necessary to sustain it. This crisis emerges when reproductive labor—both paid and unpaid—required to maintain and regenerate human life is systematically devalued, rendered invisible or unequally distributed, most often along lines of gender, class, and race.
4.3. Having Power over One’s Own Space-Time: Gender and Organizational Reflections
The visual materials already discussed also reflect broader considerations on the individual experience of time, space, and emotional labor within the neoliberal organization of academic work. The meme-like image of the overworked woman in front of her laptop—previously mentioned—functions not only as a humorous self-portrait but also as a commentary on the internalization of pressure and the normalization of overload. It illustrates how participants perceived the demand to perform constant productivity as both absurd and inescapable, especially in a context of suspended collective time and institutional ambiguity. The exaggerated expression becomes a visual shorthand for a broader sense of cognitive saturation, fatigue, and loss of control over one’s own rhythms.
Similarly, the stylized digital image of a solitary figure enclosed in a smartphone—also cited earlier—condenses the sense of spatial and emotional entrapment experienced by many during the lockdown. Beyond personal isolation, it reflects a systemic condition: the reduction of academic life to digital interactions, alongside the erosion of collegiality, informality, and shared time. The smartphone becomes not only a working tool but also a metaphor for the enclosure of subjectivity within devices, deadlines, and performance metrics.
These images, taken together, help to articulate a critical reflection on the contemporary university as a space where autonomy is increasingly framed as self-management and freedom as availability. As several scholars have argued, the neoliberal university promotes a model of academic subjectivity based on flexibility, competitiveness, and affective investment. However, the participants’ visual and narrative accounts also hint at moments of awareness and resistance. By humorously exposing the contradictions of academic life or metaphorically representing emotional exhaustion, these images challenge the dominant ideals of productivity and control. They open up space for rethinking what it means to inhabit academic time and to negotiate care, work, and selfhood on one’s own terms—even under constraint. One female researcher without children, living with her partner, stated the following:
“In that period when I was less anxious, I actually felt freer, I had a clearer mind… I also had some great ideas during this period… […] I wrote other things, with other people, as well as by myself… I also did research (about the pandemic) with a colleague of mine”.
(F33)
While researcher mothers felt “overwhelmed” with caregiving and domestic work and “squeezed” between these duties, remote research, and online teaching, a childless female researcher described her experience as a “serene period” with her partner. She felt “happy” because she had time to reflect on her life (
Nowotny 2018):
“We’ve been very happy. […] I feel lucky, I mean, we are lucky. We love each other, we get along, and we support one another. […] True, we were exhausted, but not having the world outside, you know? […] It was a great moment of reflection for me. […] I was coming out of a tough year, extremely tiring […] The lockdown was a relief […] I took a break from the work environment, which wasn’t exactly serene”.
(F33)
In this case, her partner helped create a comfortable and safe space at home, contributing to her serenity during the lockdown. She explained that her previous experience in the highly competitive academic environment had been stressful (
Monroe and Chiu 2010;
Murgia and Poggio 2018;
Bozzon et al. 2017).
Some fathers told us that they attempted various negotiations—some more successful than others—to promote gender equality and protect their relationships from potential crises. One father explained the following:
“Spaces in my house are not the largest […] my wife would be in the living room, and I’d take a bit of space in the kitchen or my bedroom, wherever I could find some space […] our organization basically involved either me or her working for half a day, in the morning or afternoon, and looking after our son the other half of the day […] it was based on our respective commitments, so there were no fixed rules, just an attempt to balance the time each of us could dedicate to work”.
(M49)
Another father described his experience:
“Of course, there’s been some tension, that’s inevitable. Yes, I would say there’s been more tension than usual. […] You know, after all, we didn’t have any major problems after our second son was born in terms of conciliation, but then after that we found… I mean, you either separate or find a compromise, a chance to… so that’s how we fixed it. […] About sharing the housework… I revised my share of it. […] I’d say we divide the housework… more or less 50%. Well, maybe not exactly 50%, but… I’ve changed a lot”.
(M43)
Fathers’ attempts at negotiation aimed to address gender inequalities in family responsibilities. Paternity in late modern societies has undergone cultural and structural changes (
Ruspini and Crespi 2016). Some of them had more time for themselves, compared to women and particularly to mothers, for reflection and introspection (
Nowotny 2018). They felt intellectually freer and more creative. As one research fellow said,
“It was a conquered time. […] Without time [in the workplace], there is no thinking. With those stupid rhythms [in the workplace], you just go from one thing to the other, mechanically. What you do is stripped of sense, of meaning [referring to work in the workplace in person]”.
(M45)
The lockdown, for some people, meant a break from stressful work environments and more time for projects or personal relationships. The atmosphere of the organization and the specific workplace influence the anxiety and stress that academic workers can feel. If your workplace is “toxic” in terms of the impact on your work−life balance, it is better to work from home.
5. Discussion
Workers in many sectors, including academia, are navigating a reality in which the boundaries between work and family life have become increasingly blurred. This is largely due to the widespread adoption of remote work and digital technologies, which intensify temporal pressures—what
Wajcman (
2014) refers to as being “pressed for time”—and enable work to be performed, and availability to be maintained, anytime and anywhere. This new mode of working raises critical questions about the protection of time and space as finite resources essential to individual well-being. Without clear boundaries, work risks expanding to fill all available time, leaving little or no space for personal relationships, care responsibilities, or self-care.
While some scholars refer to this issue as work–life conflict (see, for the debate,
Carreri et al. 2022), it is not solely a matter of conflict—it is, more profoundly, an existential condition grounded in human limits and in the fundamental need to rest, to socialize, to nurture intimate relationships—in short, to live at a human pace. Not as objects constantly valorized and commodified by the neoliberal capitalist system, but as subjects whose worth cannot be reduced to reification into work machines or mere means of production, continually assessed for their productivity.
In this sense, what emerges is a condition of temporal alienation (
Dordoni 2020), in which individuals lose control over their temporal autonomy and are absorbed into organizational regimes defined by acceleration, time destructuration, uninterrupted availability, and performance-driven logics. These dynamics exacerbate structural inequalities, particularly along lines of gender and class, by reinforcing ideal worker norms and organizational expectations that function to control, segregate, exploit and exclude those who do not—or cannot—conform to these productive demands.
Results indicate that the need to question work–life boundaries is more urgent than ever. These boundaries are not simply about achieving a functional work–life balance; they are about protecting finite human resources—such as time and energy—from being overwhelmed by work demands. This dynamic affects workers across various sectors, from customer-oriented services (
Dordoni 2019) to remote office work, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In academia, it is particularly crucial to recognize the role of boundaries in enabling the conditions necessary for the production of thought and critical analysis, as these very boundaries shape the quality of theoretical reflection, empirical research, and epistemological inquiry itself.
The neoliberal university is marked by a culture of relentless productivity, intense competition, long-lasting precarious employment throughout extended early-career stages, accelerated working rhythms, and persistent gender inequalities (
Van den Brink and Benschop 2012;
Murgia and Poggio 2018;
Ivancheva et al. 2019). Within this organizational framework, participants described their experiences of merging work, care, and life during the lockdown in ambivalent terms—either as a moment of “conquered time” or as an intensification of “extreme neoliberalism”. These narratives reflect differentiated experiences of time and space, shaped by housing conditions and class position, as our visual analysis reveals. They are also closely linked to how researchers interpreted and enacted academic productivity during the pandemic, as well as to the pressures of maintaining it in precarious conditions.
Among all, precarious academic mothers emerged as the most exposed to temporal strain. They faced an intensified burden of caregiving, domestic, and mental work, while struggling with a chronic lack of time for themselves, both to rest and to conduct research—echoing recent findings (
Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir 2020;
Malisch et al. 2020;
Myers et al. 2020;
Minello et al. 2020;
Yildirim and Eslen-Ziya 2020). The result is a deepening of inequalities, not only between men and women, but also among women themselves, particularly between those with and without caregiving responsibilities.
Importantly, these experiences underscore the crucial importance of clear boundaries between work and personal life, particularly for mothers and precarious workers. The inherent conflict between work and life can only be managed when distinct times and spaces are established for both rest and work. This separation is vital for human well-being because constant availability and pressure—without breaks or space for recovery—can undermine both physical and mental health. The pandemic’s erosion of these boundaries made it even clearer that the human capacity for continuous work without rest is finite. Thus, the need for balance is not a luxury but a necessity for maintaining a healthy work–life dynamic.
Italy’s labor landscape has undergone significant transformations in recent years, marked by the widespread rise of precarious employment. Precarious work emerges as a multidimensional phenomenon rooted in power dynamics, economic inequality, and social misrecognition, disproportionately affecting groups such as women and younger workers, also in the academic sector. These individuals face heightened economic vulnerability and barriers to union representation. Precarity intersects with broader socio-economic trends, including gendered and racialized dimensions of labor, in-work poverty, and limited protections. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the paradoxical status of essential workers, amplifying housing insecurity and work-related stress while deepening structural inequalities.
As shown by previous research (
Bozzon et al. 2017), the topic of work–life interferences in academic contexts has a long history. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, it became crucial to address these issues and develop stronger policies in Italian universities to counter problems in academics’ well-being, especially for young female researchers and professors. The boundaries between paid work and personal or family life are not merely matters of individual choice but are shaped by organizational and institutional structures and processes—decisions that must be operationalized through concrete practices, actions, and strategies (as underlined also by
Nash and Churchill 2020). Moreover, with the postponement of the pensioning scheme in Italy, older academics can also be at risk of profound anxiety and stress due to work–life imbalance. More reflection is needed to foster equality and sustainability in caring and family transitions, as well as to address gender inequalities.
Finally, it is essential to acknowledge the limitations of this study. The analysis is based on empirical material collected during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy (March–April 2020), a highly specific moment characterized by exceptional conditions: strict legal restrictions on mobility, the obligation to remain at home, and the suspension of most in-person activities. These measures created a distinctive social, spatial, and emotional environment for remote work, which significantly shaped the participants’ experiences. While the reflections developed here contribute to broader debates on work–life balance, remote working, and the intersections of gender and class, the findings are closely tied to this unique socio-historical context. Generalizations beyond this setting should therefore be made with caution, and future research is needed to assess how these dynamics have evolved in different phases of the pandemic and in diverse institutional or national contexts.
6. Conclusions and Perspectives
Addressing precariousness requires a focus on inequalities at the intersection of gender and generational divides, as well as the dynamics between typical and atypical workers in universities and other workplaces. There is a need to explore new forms of collective action and map policies promoting equitable labor practices in academia. Recognizing the public cost of precarious work, not only taking into account workers’ needs but also considering its consequences on research quality—without a medium- or a long-term horizon, researchers cannot plan and do high-quality research. Therefore, comprehensive reforms should prioritize redistributive policies and a new social and political accord among workers and governments. Future research must explore the interplay between production, reproduction, and reconciliation, fostering solidarity and sustainable solutions to counteract precariousness.
The extension and intensification of working time emerge as central dynamics: on the one hand, we witness the prolongation of working life; on the other hand, there is a continuous stretching of working hours and a growing pressure to be constantly productive, excellent, and high-performing. These dynamics generate anxiety and stress, which manifest differently across age groups, both within academia and in other sectors. In academic contexts, marked by a culture of “never-ending work”—both daily and across the life course—the issue of work–life balance must be placed at the forefront of the agenda, as a matter of organizational sustainability and individual well-being.
The logic of unlimited availability embedded in contemporary organizational cultures—particularly in knowledge-intensive and academic settings—reflects a shift from regulated working time to self-managed overwork, where control is internalized and productivity becomes a moral imperative rather than a contractual obligation.
Understanding and addressing gender equity and inclusion in academia requires a labor, organizational, and economic sociology perspective, attentive to the interplay between structural inequalities, work processes, and institutional configurations. Academic organizations are not neutral spaces but structured environments shaped by broader social and economic orders, also from a gender perspective, as a means to organize and frame social and working life, as an order (
Connell 2016) and a system (
Rubin 1975). These frameworks influence how work is valued, whose contributions are made visible, and under what conditions participation is made possible. The organization of academic labor reflects and reproduces these structures, embedding gendered and classed expectations in the norms that govern time, productivity, and career progression.
One of the most enduring and exclusionary norms is the model of the “unencumbered worker” (
Acker 2012), which positions the ideal academic as someone who is fully available, mobile and unburdened by care responsibilities. This figure is structurally gendered and classed, as it presumes a disconnection from domestic and reproductive labor typically carried out by others, most often women. Rather than being a neutral standard, this model embodies a systemic bias that marginalizes all those whose lives do not align with its implicit assumptions. It reinforces a narrow and dehumanizing conception of academic “excellence”—one that privileges constant availability and disregards human limits, overlooking the fact that research and intellectual work require time for reflection, rest, and the cultivation of creativity. Original thought cannot emerge under relentless pressure to perform, nor can it flourish within rhythms that implicitly reify scholars, conceptualizing them as
productive machines, and objectify and commodify their intellectual labor.
However, the normalization of limitless work is not only unjust for those with care responsibilities, but it is also harmful to all academic workers. The absence of boundaries and the expectation of constant availability erode the conditions for a humane relationship with work. We are not machines or disembodied intellects, but human beings whose lives include needs, relationships, and desires that extend beyond productivity. Reinstating limits to academic labor is essential not only for inclusion but for protecting the fundamental dignity of workers. The right to disconnect, to rest, and to have control over our time needs to be recognized as a basic principle for academic organizations, alongside the rights to decent work and fair pay, non-precarious employment, access to training and promotion opportunities, and freedom from discrimination.
Policy strategies that aim to foster equity and inclusion must address the material foundations of academic labor. Gender Equality Plans and institutional reforms must extend beyond formal commitments to address how time, tasks, and value are distributed within organizations. This includes rethinking evaluation criteria, making care and service work visible, and challenging the metrics that reinforce existing hierarchies. Inclusion cannot be achieved without transforming the structures that govern access, recognition, and advancement within academia. These changes are vital for the vitality of research, teaching, and academic institutions as collective work environments.
Placing labor at the center of the analysis (and of the public discourse) enables a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between organizational structures and processes, economic logics, and the quality of academic labor. The conditions under which research is produced—precarity, overwork, and unequal access to time and resources—directly affect its substance, originality, quality, and social relevance. Structural inequalities, such as those based on gender and class, are not external to academic knowledge production; they are constitutive of it. A sociological approach that integrates the study of labor, organizations, and economic structures is thus essential for analyzing how inclusion, equity, and the pursuit of meaningful knowledge are inseparably linked.
The analysis presented in this paper builds on the interpretation of both the narrative interviews and the visual material, considered in dialogue with the thematic focus of the study: the temporal disruptions produced by remote work during the COVID-19 lockdown, the gendered dimensions of care and professional labor, and the organizational frameworks that shaped these experiences. Rather than treating images and interviews as separate layers of evidence, the study adopts an interpretive strategy that brings them into conversation, illuminating how different forms of expression—verbal and visual—capture the complexities and contradictions of academic life under pressure.
This approach is grounded in a sociological perspective on gender, work, and organizations, with a particular focus on how time is socially organized and how the boundaries between paid work and unpaid care are institutionally and culturally negotiated. The work–life balance tensions reported by participants are not read simply as personal difficulties, but as the effects of structural dynamics—economic, gendered, and organizational—that became particularly visible during the crisis, yet persist beyond it. By combining narrative and visual data, the study contributes to ongoing reflections on the transformation of academic labor. It highlights the need for a deeper, situated understanding of how temporal regimes, gender inequalities, and institutional cultures intersect in shaping everyday professional life.
The reflections developed in this paper reaffirm the need to frame work–life balance not as an individual issue, but as a structural and organizational one, embedded in broader gendered and economic dynamics. The empirical insights presented here underscore the urgency of rethinking academic labor through the lens of temporal justice, care, and organizational responsibility. This perspective aligns with the growing emphasis in European and international policy frameworks—such as Gender Equality Plans, the Gender Equality Certification in Italy, and Goal 5 of the 2030 Agenda—on embedding gender equality into institutional systems and governance. As examples from some universities demonstrate, transformative change is possible when gender is treated not as a marginal concern, but as a central axis of organizational design, evaluation, and accountability.
Ultimately, profound reflection is needed at the organizational level to mitigate the harm and stress-related consequences associated with work–life balance issues, particularly during periods of exogenous shocks, when such tensions are exacerbated. In light of population ageing and the accelerated digitalization of work—alongside prevailing narratives of active ageing that, beyond promoting social and cognitive engagement, increasingly encourage prolonged participation in the labor market—it becomes urgent to broaden the analytical focus. While much attention has rightly been given to the challenges faced by working mothers and fathers, as well as those in the early yet extended stages of their academic careers, it is equally important to consider the experiences of workers in later life stages. As retirement is progressively postponed under neoliberal regimes, older individuals—who may physiologically require more time to rest and recover—are nonetheless subjected to the same intensifying rhythms of productivity and performance, with little structural recognition of their evolving needs. This raises pressing concerns about the long-term sustainability and fairness of applying uniform temporal regimes across the entire life course.