Gender gap, in Italy double the European average

At the beginning of their careers, between the ages of 20 and 30, the differences between men and women are minimal, but by the age of 35, a man is 95% employed, while a woman is only 50% likely to be employed, 40% likely to be inactive and 10% likely to be unemployed. At 65, the situation does not improve for women, who enter retirement in just over half of the cases, while the other half are inactive. These are the figures from the new research by the Elle Active! Observatory, conducted by the Hearst group and the Centre for Labour Research (Crilda) of the Catholic University of Milan. Presented today at the Elle Italia forum being held at the Cattolica until tomorrow, the data clearly shows 'how much the entire working life of women is forced to proceed in a much more discontinuous and fragmented manner'.

Although there has been a slight improvement in the female employment rate, rising from 55% in 2022 to 56.4% in 2024, the Italian labour market suffers from a worrying gender gap, with a gap between men and women employed of 19.4%, almost double the European average The burden of domestic and care work continues to fall mainly on women, who spend an average of 4 hours and 37 minutes a day on it compared to an hour and 48 minutes for men, according to ISTAT data.

"The crucial moment when for many women their careers undergo a change is the birth of their first child: one in 5 mothers will have left their jobs permanently by 2025," said Professor Claudio Lucifera, who coordinated the research. "That is the phase when many women begin to accumulate growing gaps in seniority and years of social security contributions that they are then unable to make up for.

Italy has a higher female part-time share (31.5 per cent) than the European average (28 per cent) and a gap of about 23 percentage points compared to the male part-time share (8 per cent). But the research also highlights that "occupational gender segregation in Italy is among the highest in Europe. About half of women's employment is concentrated in only 21 professions, while for men the main professions are 53. Moreover, the gender pay gap increases progressively throughout the life cycle until it soars towards the end of the career (with a gap of over 30 per cent).