If only one woman out of two works in Italy and we are at the bottom of the European ranking for female employment rate, the problem does not concern women, the emergency belongs to the country.
The birth rate decline is only the consequence of not having addressed the issue for decades with adequate welfare policies, explains Linda Laura Sabbadini, pioneer of statistical gender analysis at Istat, in an ANSA podcast together with the voices of the feminist economist Azzurra Rinaldi and by the scholar of gender stereotypes Ella Marciello.
“We don't need spot measures like bonuses”, the statistician and the economist agree, but continuous systemic actions: towards female employment and the autonomy of young people, services for children, assistance for the elderly and disabled people, against the stereotypes that still influence the lives of women since they were children.
The undeniable change in the role of women in society from the post-war period to today, in very slow steps, is the practically exclusive result of female strength, due to the investment in training and culture that has led them to want to realize themselves on all levels and to grow, in professions from which they were previously excluded.
Italian and European data
Almost half of women in our country do not work (51% in 2022, 53% in 2023).
According to Istat, there are 10 million employed women, almost a million more in ten years.
But there are 900 thousand unemployed people and as many as eight million inactive people, those who aren't looking for work at all.
There is also a large gap that remains between the North and South of the country.
The difference with the EU 27 average is also enormous.
In Germany the female employment rate is over 70%, in France it is 68%.
According to data from Openpolis, Italy is thirteenth in Europe for gender equality, well below France and Spain, but above Greece.
Our country, however, is the one that has recorded the most evident improvement since 2013 (+14.9%).
A woman's life is an obstacle course, from the first years of life to retirement.
First she encounters cultural stereotypes that as a child distance her from the subsequent choice of scientific faculties, then she arrives in the world of work with a profession that tends to be less paid.
Motherhood is the watershed: it marks a fragmentation of one's career, if not the loss of one's job.
She therefore puts on involuntary part-time jobs and precarious contracts.
The pay gap completes the picture, together with vertical segregation: that glass ceiling for male top roles, recalls Azzurra Rinaldi, feminist economist, professor of political economy at the Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome and director of the School of Gender Economics.
At the end of her career, the woman will have made enormous sacrifices to receive a pension 40% lower than the man, according to INPS data.
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How stereotypes affect
As early as primary school, girls encounter cultural stereotypes that influence subsequent choices.
In fact, girls and boys are still unconsciously directed towards different roles.
In primary school textbooks there are still the mother who irons and cooks and the father who works, and perhaps is the boss, "a 1950s vision - notes Sabbadini - which has been unthinkable for some time now.
Also because today families cannot make it without the women's income: it easily falls below the poverty line, especially if there are children."
We should start from primary schools to have different and culturally anti-stereotype teaching methods.
Then, in any degree course, says Sabbadini, gender stereotypes should be studied as an exam subject: it would at least eliminate the transmission of the unconscious ones in which we are immersed.
We need the training of teachers, publishers, advertisers, all those who can convey stereotypes.
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Still few girls graduate from STEM
The consequence is that there are still too few girls who undertake STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) degree courses.
According to an analysis by Deloitte, Italian female students enrolled in a STEM degree course are only 14.5% of those attending university, far below the European average.
Linda Laura Sabbadini became passionate about scientific subjects in middle school, thanks to teacher Emma Castelnuovo, daughter of the mathematician Guido Castelnuovo.
“My teacher looked at mathematics: logic, intuition, creativity.
With her we played with numbers, it wasn't a mnemonic study and nobody went wrong.
Scientific subjects are fantastic and creative,” says Sabbadini, addressing today's girls and boys to throw themselves into it headlong, but above all to teachers, to help dismantle some false beliefs.
Therefore, even if they are very good at scientific subjects, girls today continue to prefer humanistic paths but in this way some professions, those in the scientific world, will be precluded: these are precisely the professions that are best paid and less precarious than the others.
To reverse the trend – explains Azzurra Rinaldi – cultural and educational work is necessary, which we cannot leave only to schools.
It is the institutions that must do work on families."
Unpaid care activities
The division of roles in the family is still asymmetrical, despite the progress made.
At the end of the 1980s, 80% of care work (for children, parents, the elderly, the disabled, the home itself) was on the shoulders of women.
Today we are at 67%.
But if you analyze the data you see that it has improved "more because women couldn't take it anymore and cut back on that care work, than because of real male participation", Sabbadini analyzes the statistics.
The law on public nursery schools dates back to 1971, but today only 28% of children go to nursery school.
We are far from the European goal.
Yet every euro invested in childcare facilities would be returned to the State 13 times, Rinaldi recalls.
“It was also necessary to intervene with support for the elderly and disabled.
Instead, women, the real caregivers of the country, always take care of it.
It was necessary to intervene with adequate paternity leave, not ten days (and previously it was two).
There are countries that have equal parental leave between women and men, which also helps men to enter into the relationship with their child and the role of father.
Leave is also paid at 30% of the salary and since - as a rule - the highest salary is that of the man, it is not even convenient for the woman for the man to take it.
In 80% of cases, leave is therefore requested by the woman.
From the pay gap to the pension gap: the gap increases with age
The gender gap grows with increasing working life and age.
If workers have a child, in 20% of cases they leave their job immediately afterwards.
If they return, they are often forced to work part-time because the services are not available and the parental leave is not sufficient.
So they begin to earn less, have more precarious jobs, work interruptions.
Part-time in Italy is 60% unwanted, unlike other European countries.
All this weighs on the career path of women who not only choose (due to stereotypes) lower-paid jobs, but also have a more fragmented career and, ultimately, carry out a lower number of paid working hours than men.
In the end there is a pension difference between men and women of 40%, according to INPS data.
The woman makes enormous sacrifices but the wage difference increases because the fragmentation of her career increases.
For men, time works in favor of their career.
Fighting the birth rate
The bonuses are temporary measures, "while we need a permanent strategy", economist Rinaldi and statistician Sabbadini agree: increase services, increase parental leave, fight against gender stereotypes.
“The bonus does not affect future choices.
We are at an all-time low in the number of newborns and a few children can put the pensions of an elderly population at risk.
But the birth rate decline "is the consequence of the absence of welfare policies for women and the autonomy of young people, who have not yet recovered the employment rate before the 2009 crisis", warns Sabbadini.
Until the trend for women and young people is reversed, "the birth rate will not start to grow again and not because Italian women don't want children", she specifies.
On average they would like two, but we are at 1.2.
The largest gap of all Western countries.
Among other things, there is another taboo to dispel: when the female employment rate is higher, the birth rate is also higher.
enrica.dibattista@ansa.it
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