GENDERWISE

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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
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• Role discrimination the workplace

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• 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.

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• The most important change which has taken place
  recently in our society concerns womens
  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).

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• 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.

6

• 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.
  

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• 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• 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 self-employment 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.

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• 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.

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• 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
  doctors 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.

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• 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 doctors
  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.

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• 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.

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• 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 20-24-aged women
  and 6 for 25-29-aged women.

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• For middle-aged categories (35-39 and 40-44) 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• 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.

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• The most common cases concern the following
  aspects conciliation, wage discrimination,
  discriminatory dismissal, persecutions in the
  workplace, sexual harrassement, career
  progressions.

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• 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 kids
  sickness, in the assumption that mother should be
  in charge of the nursing.

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• Another widespread form of discrimination
  concerns the wage. The wage differences between
  women and men are a common phenomenon in Italy.
  Womens job income, as well as retirement
  pensions are considerably lower than mens.

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• 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 managers wage is 1,5 time
  higher than a woman of the same level and
  qualification, in subordinate job mans hourly
  pay is more than three times higher than womans.
  

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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.

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• Lets 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.

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• Law 215/92, provides financial support for
  actions promoting woman entrepreneurship in
  favour of women who wish to create an enterprise

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• 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.

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• The anti-discrimination measures and the
  genderwise policies have contained direct
  discriminations and have produced a higher
  awareness, above all in young women.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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
  womens 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.

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• 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.