Job or baby? Italian women’s struggle to have both holds back growth

MILAN — Elena has a seven-month old baby and is about to quit her job, unable to overcome the difficulties of combining motherhood and work in Italy, where both women’s employment and the birth rate are among the lowest in the European Union. Getting more women into the labour force is an imperative for the central bank, which has said the change is needed to support long-term economic growth and ensure that Italy’s 2.8 trillion euro ($3 trillion) debt pile is sustainable. Dealing with gender inequality – a subject that won Claudia Goldin the Nobel economics prize this week – could also ease a demographic crisis that threatens the pension system, five economists including Italy’s former chief statistician told Reuters. Research shows women in richer economies are more likely to have children if they work. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – Italy’s first female premier – has said women are “an untapped resource” that lessens the need for immigrant labour. Yet her conservative government’s 2024 budget, to be presented on Monday, is not expected to include measures to drive change. “Italy really is a very interesting case, because female participation is extremely low, against the backdrop of worrying fertility rates,” said Claudia Olivetti, an economics professor at Dartmouth College. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she has yet to submit her resignation, Elena told Reuters she could not get a spot at a local nursery and can’t afford a full-time babysitter. Her small company employer denied her request for flexible working arrangements, she said, including some mandated by law. According to a government report relating to 2021, nearly one in five Italian women aged under 50 left their job after having their first child. Over half said they found it impossible to combine work and childcare. Another 29%, however, said they had been fired or not had their contract renewed, the report showed. Enza Guzzo returned from her second maternity leave in October 2011 to find a dismissal notice waiting. “They called me in and gave me the letter. I refused to take it and they sent it to my home address,” she told Reuters. She found another job and sued her former employer – motivated, she said, by a desire for justice. She won the case. “I’m raising two daughters: they too could become mothers one day. I had to do it for them: you can’t have kids and be Read more at: inquirer

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