Work ennobles man ... and women?

On May 1, the workers 'festival is celebrated, an international anniversary born in 1866, following the first event for the defense of workers' rights. Since then it has passed time and work law has become a fundamental element for our society. But what has not undergone improvements, however, is the equality in work law and the gender employment gap.

2020 was a difficult year for the world of work, and especially for women. Only in Italy, of the 444 thousand jobs that have been lost in the last year, 70% involved the female gender. A dramatic situation that touched the fund in December, with the loss of 101 thousand jobs, of which 99 thousand concerned women. Unfortunately, the gender gap, however, is not limited to this: in the last period, in fact, there is increasingly talking about Gender Pay Gap.
Also mentioned by President Draghi a few days ago, the genre wage gap represents another important problem for the role of women in modern society. According to estimates, female incomes are 42.8% lower than male ones, with a gap for the same duties of 46.7%. Reading these data you will be spontaneous to ask you what the sources of such inequalities are and, in reality, they are varied. First of all we find the Seccoral Segregation for which women are above represented in relatively not very paid sectors; And let's not talk about the Work-Life Balance which leads women to dedicate most of their time to duties related to the family, children and the house, carrying out in all respects an unpaid job (the New York Times estimates that in 2020 the unpaid work done by women in world exceeds 10.9 trillions of dollars); Finally, the Glass ceiling, so less than 10% of the CEO in the fortune500 is a woman.

In general, there is no more than one problem only feminine, but of a systemic and economic efficiency problem: think that if all Italian women worked, the GDP would increase by 7%.

Unfortunately, continuing to this rhythm, according to the World Economic Forum, will pass another century before being able to reach gender equality on the world of work.

Camilla Dominissini