Early-Career Women Academics: Between Neoliberalism and Gender Conservatism

The article examines the intersection between the gender culture and the neoliberal
transformation of research and academia. It focuses on the impact of the transformation on the
early-career women academic researchers in the Czech Republic (CR). It examines a sample of
women academics to see how their career paths unfold over time and identify the mechanisms,
factors, and barriers that affect their academic careers in the early stages. The article looks at
14 excellent early-career women academics from different domains based on two interviews
repeated after 7 years and investigates the trajectory of their academic paths from the longitudinal
perspective. The combination of a highly conservative gender culture, the neoliberal reforms
introduced in the field of research and academia over the past decade, and the resistance to
promoting gender equality measures make the CR an informative case to study. I argue that the
gender culture of the CR and Czech research and academic institutions and the conditions for
work-life balance combine with the neoliberal reforms to have a very negative impact on the early
stage of women’s academic careers.