GENDER GAP, THE SITUATION IN ITALY, AND OUR HOPES FOR THE FUTURE

It’s undeniable, the problem of the gender gap is anguishing the whole world and equality is far from being achieved. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 132 years to close the gap and reach parity, although before the pandemic the estimate was 100 years. This figure refers to the whole world, and of course, the estimate varies depending on the area of the world we are analyzing, the most advanced region is North America with 59 years, and the worst performing is South Asia with 197 years. Good to know that Europe classifies as second best, with 60 years necessary to close the gap, including the best-performing countries in the world: Iceland, Finland, and Norway. As for our country, Italy, the results are not so optimistic: out of 146 countries, taken into consideration by WEF, we rank 63rd. If we look at the EU level, again we are not among the best performers on the Gender Equality Index, 14th out of 27, with a score below the EU’s one. To continue our analysis of the gender gap in Italy, first, we have to define the criteria used to determine how the scores are assigned to each country.

The dimensions of the Gender Gap Index

The whole scoring system is based on four different dimensions for the WEF: economic opportunities, education, health, and political empowerment. The first dimension considers the different work opportunities available and the participation of women in the world’s economy, taking into account the possibilities of advancements in the workplace and the remuneration gap.  The second one is concerned with educational attainment, as in the highest education level that a person can accomplish, considering their gender. In health and survival, we include healthy life expectancy, access to healthcare, and sex ratio at birth. For political empowerment, we take into consideration the number of women working in ministerial positions or the parliament, as well as the number of years, in the last 50, of female/male heads of state or government (depending on the form of government of each country).

EU’s analysis instead considers 6 factors, the first four are the same as the ones used by the WEF, to which we add money, measured with the remuneration gap, and therefore separated from economic opportunities, and time, as in the allocation of time to domestic work, childcare, and social activities. We might even consider a seventh factor, violence, examining the most common forms of violence to which women are subject (but data for this factor are collected with struggle).

The gender gap in Italy

As mentioned before, the situation in Italy is not so bright, and it could be way better. In the last two years, we have maintained the position obtained previously, which could seem encouraging for most people, but, it implies no improvement as well, which is far from being positive.

In terms of scores, considering the EU’s analysis, our greatest achievement is in the health dimension, 89.0 points out of 100, and in terms of access to healthcare the score is very close to 100, 98.6 precisely. The second-best category is surprisingly money, with a value of 80.5, but still below the European average (82.6).  And I say surprisingly because data also shows that, on average, an Italian woman will earn 43% less than a man during her life, and she will work 10 years less than a man. Why do we have this difference in terms of working years? The main cause is a significant disproportional involvement in household work and childcare: data from 2021 highlight the fact that women generally will spend more time in these chores than men, 67% of women will do them completely or almost by themselves, while the value for men is 22%, so basically three times higher for women than man. And also, childcare will fall mainly on women, 48% of them take care of children on their own, without help. Therefore, the score in the work category comes with no surprise, it is the lowest in Europe with a value of 63.2 points, mainly due to the low participation at work.

We have a minimal improvement of 0.5 points in the knowledge and education category compared to 2021, reaching a score of 59.5 in 2022, thus we have a lot of possibilities for improvement. Educational participation has fallen, still, women have a 17% chance of achieving a higher level of education, a university degree, compared to the 14% possibility of men. The best improvement concerning last year is in the domain of power, since we have an increase of 4.7 points, reaching the score of 56.9. The cause is clear, in 2022 we had the election of the first female PM in Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and we continued this year making progress in this factor, with the appointment of Elly Schlein as the first female secretary of the Democratic Party. Truth to be told, since 2010 Italy has had one of the best improvements in this factor compared to all the member states.

What has been done and our hopes for the future

Given our situation, we have a lot of room for improvement. A step forward towards closing the gender gap was taken at the end of 2021, with the approval of the Gribaudo law, aimed at closing the remuneration gap between gender and encouraging women’s job participation. The law requires public and private firms, with more than 50 workers, to produce a “parity report” describing the situation within the company and promoting equal pay and equal roles, advancement opportunities, and maternity protection. Another objective pursued by the government is to close the digital gap and quadruple the number of women with an ITC degree by 2025.

Thus, our hope for the future is to see achieved all the objectives of the Italian government in this matter, to witness the effective implementation and positive effect of the existing laws, and the birth of more and fairer laws regulating the problem.  A lot of work needs to be done, and many difficulties must be faced, but in the end, hopefully, we will be better and higher in the rankings, after all, as the Latins said: “Per Aspera, Ad Astra.”

References:

Global Gender Gap Report 2022, Insight report (July 2022), edited by the World Economic Forum

Gender Equality Index in Italy, by the European Institute for Gender Equality (2022)

Additional Data on Gender Equality Index in Italy

Recent situation and actions taken by Italy against Gender Gap

Gribaudo Law text