GENDERWISE
The role of men as agents of change in reconciling
work and family life
2nd Transnational Peer Review
Enna 6th-07th October 2006
Gender Equality in the workplace

Role discrimination the workplace

In Italy, genderwise and anti-discrimination policies have not
reached important results. Disparities persist and occur again in
the new social dynamics and in the new productive and reproductive
conditions.

At the same way than in other countries, women are a priceless
resource, however they are still the most exposed to risks of
discrimination and exclusion.

The most important change which has taken
place recently in our society concerns
women’s experience and identity. This
change concerns above all their freedom and
chance to make their own choices in their
private life (procreation and access to training
and job opportunities).

The increased woman emancipation can be seen in the increase in
her participation in the job market, in the improvement of her work
position, in the increase of the number of women employed in the
growing sectors and in higher positions.

Italian women, indeed, who are as a paradox the most employed
and unemployed in Europe, are the most dynamic and innovative
component force of the job market and entrepreneurship.They have
been identified as the engine of economy and social and economical
development of our country.
Neverthless, the Italian job market records still a
strong gap between male and female workers. The
rates of female activity and employment are
dramatically under the European ones and as a
consequence, the Lisbon directions (the objective for
Europe is an increasing of 60% for 2010) imposed to
Italy an extraordinary growth of female employment, in
term of fast pace, steady solidity, quality and stability.
The positive results of woman component
force, that are still low in the Southern
regions, pointed out that woman
employment is mainly bound to atypical
and temporary job. This results showed
how women profit of opportunities of
stabilization of business relations much
lesser than men.

Moreover, the increasing participation of
women in the job market have not
modified the role of man in the familiar
responsibilities and the burden of
domestic work and activities remains
mainly on woman.
The female job, figures
Since 1993 up to now jobs among women
increased of 16,5%, reaching the rate of
8.236 unities, against an increase of 1,3%
among men, reaching 13.593. This means
that in a decade the total amount of new
jobs have been covered by women.
Women employment increased above all in
the sector of services (however little in the
sector of commerce), while it decreased in
agriculture and industry. Italian women have
been and still are underrepresented in selfemployment: their rate is just 29,2%, while
the rate increases in the subordinate sector
like for men,despite the growth of number of
female entrepreneurs.
According to a study of CESIS, among
public and private managers, 80,7% are
men, while women are only 19,3%.
The “pink sectors” are school, and health
service and the number of women manager
is increasing: the number of women
manager, especially in public institutions,
has increased up to 24.2%, and the
percentage reaches 37,4% among
executive managerial staff.
If we analyse the level of education, however,
a strong discrimination come out. Among the
30-39 year-old female employees, almost
60% todays has a secondary degree, while
men are less then the half. Almost 20% of
young female employees has a doctor’s
degree, while among male the rate is just
11,6%. The most important aspect is that for
men education is connected just with their
position and their role in their workplace.
For women, instead, education seems a prerequisite
for their access to work, that would be otherwise
difficult and anyway subordinate.
In the job market 80,3% of women have doctor’s
degree, 66,7% have secondary school diploma, 64,9%
have vocational school, 42,9% compulsory school,
16,6% without any school the percentage fall to 16,6%
and the unemployment rate is the highest. Compared
to the European average Italy has the lowest rate of
low-educated women employed.
If we analyse the unemployment rate
the differences between genders and
between geographical areas become
stronger. If we consider manpower
between 15 and 64 years old, the
female unemployment rate is two
times the male one in every areas of
the countries.


The data show critical situations above all
for the youngest categories living in the
South (57,4%) and in the Islands (58,7%).
The chances to find a job for young women
are higher in the North-Eastern area where
unemployment rates are 7,8% for 20-24aged women and 6% for 25-29-aged
women.
For middle-aged categories (35-39 and 4044) the highest unemployment rates record
once more in the South and in the Islands.
The unemployment rates for Southern
women reach 23,8% (for 35-39) in the islands
against 4,4% of the North-West area. It is
probable that some of these unemployed
women have never been employed, not even
as temporary or off-the-book workers.

A study of the Ministry of Labour
through the Excelsior informative
system concerning the job demand in
the Province of Enna for 2004 reveals
that there is a low level of participation
of female component force in the job
market.

If we make a distinction between genders, we
can notice that in the Province of Enna the
number of women participating in the job
market is very low, compared to female
population living in this area.

Concerning the professional
composition we can notice, once more,
a kind of gender segregation, in the
sense that there are typical female job
and typical male jobs. Women are
mainly employed in the sector of
services, health services, domestic
services, aesthetics sector, and in the
door-to-door selling.
DISCRIMINATIONS IN THE WORKPLACES

The concept of discrimination lays on the
definition of unjustified prejudice from the
employer or from collegues and superiors
to hire a woman and to place her in high
level sectors and give her high positions,
according to her requisites and competences,
and give her an equal wage, like a male
employee with the same competences and
skills.
Although the discrimination against
female workers is a widespread
phenomenon, both in horizontal and
vertical segregation, women have a
partial and insufficient awareness of
it.

The most common cases concern the
following aspects: conciliation, wage
discrimination, discriminatory dismissal,
persecutions in the workplace, sexual
harrassement, career progressions.

Especially maternity still represents a very
critical stage of woman career. It is still a
common practise to ask for the pregnancy test
before hiring, and the practice of hiring with a
contextual blank letter of resignation.
Regressions and transfers are often connected
to maternity, as well as stricter conditions than
the ones provided by law concerning the leaves
for fathers in case of under three-year-old kid’s
sickness, in the assumption that mother should
be in charge of the nursing.

Another widespread form of discrimination
concerns the wage. The wage differences
between women and men are a common
phenomenon in Italy. Women’s job income,
as well as retirement pensions are
considerably lower than men’s.

The average gap of job income is higher, in
relative terms, in the most qualified and better
paid jobs and in the areas where the average
income is higher. A manager’s wage is 1,5
time higher than a woman of the same
level and qualification, in subordinate job
man’s hourly pay is more than three times
higher than woman’s.
POLICIES IN SUPPORT OF WOMEN
To cope with these inequalities, in these last
years the Government developed policies to
promote women participation and
employment through specific laws and
allocations.


Let’s remind the laws against discrimination:
law 125/91 prohibits any kind of
discrimination in the workplaces, in order to
promote professional equality among
workers. It provides a series of instruments to
promote women employment and to prevent
and contrast discrimination in the workplaces.

Law 215/92, provides financial support for
actions promoting woman entrepreneurship
in favour of women who wish to create an
enterprise

Law 53/2000 introduces leaves for relatives and, with
the objectives to promote a new balance between
professional and private life, provides a series of
provisions to support maternity and paternity, to support
the right to nursing and training. The objective of the law
is to attribute to both parents the right to get leaves in
order to make possible a re-distribution of responsibilities
and nursing between the two genders.

The anti-discrimination measures and the
genderwise policies have contained direct
discriminations and have produced a higher
awareness, above all in young women.

Discrimination against which we must fight today is
mainly indirect discrimination, which push female
workforce towards underpaid sectors, job, and
qualification with no chance of promotion.
Meaningful examples is the increase of nursing job
in private household or in the third sector and the
increase of atypical jobs. Underpaid and
discontinous jobs not only prejudice the
acquisition of experiences and competences,
jeopardizing the hopes of career, but they also
obstacle perspectives of private projects of life, such
as maternity.

It is necessary, therefore, a real “cultural revolution”.
Within this context actions must be taken in school
concerning cultural education, civics, school guidance
and services to family. The problem of gender
disequalities does not concern only women, but the
whole society, which must cope with it more than in the
past, to make more effective the commitment to reduce
the gender disparities in the work context.
No progresses can take place if we do not improve the
dimension of local welfare and the network of
common culture, services for person and families,
network of support and associations, that could
assure a fair and right conciliation between women’s
work and private life. Besides the possible
investments in specific services for working women,
the most important boost in this field must be
employed in the creation of a shared culture and the
combination of all the different services of familiar
support.

Finally, also guidance and monitoring are necessary.
Careful observations of the current situation and new
ideas about strategies to be carried out derive from a
careful and steady analysis of the context with its
progresses and from an accurate study of the processes
taking place. It is necessary, therefore, to strengthen the
monitoring activity concerning woman and man
employment, and also the local socio-economical job
systems, woman troubles, quality of the carried out
actions and good practices of guidance.