The average income of women represents about 59.5% of that of men overall.
Income diversity is also reflected in tax revenue with a lower average rate for women, with the only exception of the lowest income tenth.
This is what emerges from the report on the Gender Budget of the Mef illustrated in a hearing to the Senate and Chamber Budget commissions by the undersecretary for the economy, Cecilia Guerra.
"This evidence on gender inequalities in income, when not deriving from real discrimination on the labor market to the detriment of women, is largely a reflection of the gender" specialization "between paid and unpaid work, by virtue of which women more frequently accept lower wages in the face of advantages in terms of flexibility and hours ", explained Guerra.
The recovery plan is an opportunity "unrepeatable"
to reduce the deep gender inequality from those of the labor market, he stressed lGuerra explaining that the government will also intervene following the indications coming from the parliament "with important tools such as expanding services nursing care, kindergartens in the first place ".
Italy
is the country that has recorded the greatest progress overall in the period 2005-2017 to tackle the gender gap but on the basis of the EU Gender Equality Index it
is still the last country in the EU as regards the world of work
.
The undersecretary for the economy underlined this.
According to the data collected in the Report, which uses 128 different indicators of gender gaps in the economy and society, elaborated by Italian (Istat and Inps, first of all) and European institutions, the female employment rate in Italy in 2019 is still very low (50.1%) and records a distance of 17.9 percentage points from the male one, with very wide territorial gaps, with an employment rate of women equal to 60.4% in the North and 33.2% in the South.
Symmetrically, the rate of non-participation in work reaches higher levels (33%) for younger women and lower levels for the 45-54 age group (19.2%), with significant territorial and gender gaps: from 41.5% for women in the South (compared to 28.8% for men), to 17.6% for women in the Center (compared to 12.3% for men) and to 12.7% for women in the North (compared to 7.9% for men).
