Same work, less money. From gender pay gap to violence

Doing the same work as their male colleagues while achieving the same results, but with a much lower salary. It happens to women all over the world, since time immemorial. And it is a social injustice that continues to be a gateway to psychological and physical violence. In addition to creating serious damage to the economy of all countries: in the European Union it has led to an economic loss of almost 3% of GDP in 2023. The gender pay gap is the topic at the centre of the latest episode of "Frida", Ansa's podcast against gender violence, now in its seventh episode, which compares data, laws and initiatives in Italy, the rest of Europe and the USA. And which in this episode analyses economic inequality, with a series of interviews with Italian and European economists, starting from a fundamental principle: the close link between the gender pay gap and gender-based violence.

The patriarchal culture in fact attributes a minority role to women, which combined with economic dependence fuels the cycle of violence. "If the battle to break down gender discrimination in the labour market is still a women's battle," explains economist Azzurra Rinaldi, director of the School of Gender Economics at Rome's Unitelma Sapienza University, in the podcast, "it is because of a general short-sightedness, a lack of understanding of the fact that the absence of women from the labour market weighs heavily: we are 14 percentage points below the European Union average in terms of the female employment rate and it would be enough to close this gap to have, according to Eurostat data, an increase in the gross domestic product of 7 percentage points that would bring benefits to all and sundry'.

If in Italy men, according to Inps data, earn 28% more than women (and the situation does not improve with pensions), the situation is not much different in Europe. Economist and researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences in Berlin and the Copenhagen Business School, Anne Sophie Lassen, explains that it is also the so-called 'greedy jobs' that penalise women. Especially in the fields of finance, consultancy or law, she explains in the podcast, there is a tendency to reward and thus pay more to those who offer availability beyond any time limit, demands that a woman caring for a family can hardly accommodate. Conversely, those who can accept them have better career opportunities. The gender pay gap continues to be very strong even in America, where the disproportion increases when one goes to analyse the salary of African-American women. But what can be done to reverse it? According to the experts, we should start with parental leave and establish controls to ensure equal pay.