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. This work aims at providing an updated scenario on the underrepresentationof women in the Italian university system in the area of geosciences in thelast two decades. The retrieved official data on permanent full andassociate professors in the 19-years considered highlight some positivetrends: an increase in the number of female full professors from 9.0 % to18.5 % and in female associate professors from 23.6 % to 28.9 %.However, although the number of female full professors almost doubled inthis period, such increase still represents an excessively slow trend.Slightly better is the trend related to associate professors. The pictureportrayed for non-permanent researchers, called RTD-b, as introduced by theItalian Law no. 240/2010 (essentially tenure-track associate professorposition), instead raises strong concerns for the future seen that thefemale percentage is just 26 %, thus exhibiting a significant genderimbalance. This is even more significant if we consider that the studentpopulation in geosciences shows a gender imbalance of about 37 %, nogender gap at PhD level and a relatively high Glass Ceiling Index (GCI)during the career progression of women. An analysis of the geographical distribution of female researchers ingeosciences has evidenced that, although the percentages of women arecomparable, the GCI calculated in Southern Italy has been alarmingly high in the last 2–3 years and is divergent from the decrease observed in Northern and Central Italy. The work also analyses the gender balance over different areas of geosciences, showing that in Paleontology and Paleoecology the gap isinverted with more female than male professors, both at full and associateprofessor level, whereas the gap is almost closed in Mineralogy forassociate professors, far though from being balanced for full professors.All remaining geological disciplines suffer a gender imbalance. Further analysis carried out in this work unveils that the number of femalefull professor is low (  %) both at national and regional level in the 2000–2009 decade, consistent with a GCI higher than 2.5–3. From 2010to 2013, likely in response to the Italian Law no. 240 of 2010, an important progressive increase, associated with a decrease of GCI, is visible. However, from 2014 to 2019 the percentage remains constant ( ∼20  %) with the exception of Southern Italy, which displays a return to lower values (  %). Finally, an international comparison with countries like Germany and the USA definitively indicates that the Italian university system is more equal in terms of gender balance. Even if some significant and positive steps have been carried out in theItalian university system, still much effort is required to fight a generaland crucial problem which is the gender balance issue. Results could beachieved promoting work-life balance policies that better reconcile familyand work, stimulating a reorganization of the work system still currentlyset on the male model but, and more importantly, changing the prevailingpatriarchal mentality. The Italian university system has already a great example to follow: thezero-pay gap. This is possibly the only system worldwide where male andfemale professors earn the same identical salary, compared to the salary gap of between 15 % and 30 % of countries richer than Italy, and must be the target to reach, in the near future, for gender balance.

Women in geosciences within the Italian University system in the last 20 years