I’LL BE A DOCTOR: MEDICAL SPECIALIZATION CHOICES FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

The aim of this paper is to investigate gender differences in medical edu-cation in Italy, with a focus on medical specialization schools. On the one hand, medical education is characterized by a high rate of feminization, but on the other hand, especially in the field of specialization, significant gender differences emerge, showing a greater presence of men in some branches and of women in others. The field under study is therefore par-ticularly interesting because it presents an apparent paradox: a profes-sional sector characterized by high social and occupational prestige, high levels of remuneration and significant career opportunities, largely acces-sible to women, but at the same time a strong gender segregation within specialties. These differences are often associated with inequalities in wages, career expectations, and social prestige. In order to analyze the social processes, relational mechanisms and gender stereotypes that un-derlie this segregation, the paper aims to reconstruct the situation of gen-der imbalance in Italian medical specialties and its variation over the me-dium term. For this purpose, we analyze cross-sectional and longitudinal secondary data provided by the Ministry of University and Research, build-ing an original national dataset of students in medical specialization schools.