What is really holding women back from pursuing successful career growth? The more we investigate this question, the more this issue seems contradictory and unrealistic. We meet talented and determined women who have strong academic and professional backgrounds, but who very rarely manage to achieve their ambitions. It is time to mind the gender gap for a more sustainable future. As gender equality advisors, we are here to play our part in making this change happen.
Gender equality is not only an intrinsic value and a right in itself, but it is also instrumental in achieving a country’s economic growth.
According to the Global Gender Gap Index, the report that evaluates the progress made towards gender equality in the sectors of politics, economy, education and health of the 153 countries that the World Economic Forum analyses, Italy was ranked 63rd in 2021.
Employed women: very few, only in some sectors, never at the top
According to what was reported in the Gender Report of the State General Accounting Office for the financial year 2020, presented at the end of 2021, “the female employment rate in 2020 fell to 49 per cent while the gap with respect to men rose to 18.2 percentage points (compared to 17.9 in 2019) “. Among female workers, “nearly 1.9 million women are forced into involuntary part-time work if they want to work, compared to 849 thousand men in the same conditions”. Female employment is particularly low in Southern Italy (32.2%) and in the islands (33.2%): a particularly concerning figure because among the 5 European Regions with the lowest values of female employment, four are from Southern Italy.
Special attention should be placed on university education: only 16% of graduates have studied STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects and only 15.6% of women operates in technical-scientific fields (in Europe 22.1%). Studies show that from the age of 6, a gap is created between boys and girls because the latter are discouraged from following their passion and attitude for scientific subjects. This generates a gap in mathematics skills between 15-year-old boys and girls, among the highest in the OECD area, 16 points of difference, against an average of 5, according to the latest UNESCO report. This gap automatically generates a foreclosure towards the professions of the future.
The welfare that is not there
In general, for women–even more for women with children–there are still difficulties in accessing and staying in the labour market, and experiencing a sort of blackmail related to their choice to have children limits in opportunities and career, which results in scarce presence of women in decision-making positions.
Let us recall at this point that none of the 40 Italian companies with the greatest capitalization listed in Milan has a female CEO, and no woman is even visible in succession plans.
In Italy, care of family members is culturally dependent on women:
- 71% of family caregivers are women, in “a line of continuity between the role of mother as the main deputy in childcare, still prevalent in our country, with that of ‘care tout court’ for the entire span of life “.
- Nursery schools do not respect the European objectives set in Lisbon (they must be offered to at least 33% of children under 3 and to 90% of children between 3 and 5 years old); we are therefore witnessing the sad phenomenon of 46% of women graduates who leave their jobs after the birth of their second child.
Minister Elena Bonetti – Photo: Terry W. Sanders
To help companies accelerate their gender balance, we have designed, tested and proposed, a specific G.E.A. (Gender Equality Advisory) which analyses, compares and defines a concrete and effective work and development plan based on 4 pillars:
- Culture
- Human Resources Policies and Processes
- Network
- Leadership Accountability
Each pillar is populated with a plurality of actions that will allow the company to move towards equality and to measure itself periodically.
The Italian law also goes in this direction with the recent introduction of the Public Certification of Gender Equality provided for by the Gribaudo Law 615/2021.
The opportunity to be certified will be given to all companies, with particular attention to medium and small companies under 250 employees. In the experimental phase, until mid-2026, the certification will in fact be facilitated for medium, small and micro-sized enterprises. Obtaining gender equality certification will allow companies to access reliefs and concessions.
In this scenario of progress and social challenge, we continue at the forefront to accompany Italian companies on the necessary path to achieve gender equality.
As stated by the Minister for Equal Opportunities Elena Bonetti, we firmly believe that “more gender equality means more value for a company, more growth, more wealth: even more so, it is essential to make it measurable. Precisely the absence of criteria and parameters of evaluation is among the causes that up to now have made the promotion of effective equality ineffective “.
