Is Italy the Best Place For Working Women?

Italy ranks first in wage equality claims Becky Pettit and Jennifer Hook  in the book, “Gendered Tradeoffs: Family, Social Policy and Economic Inequality in Twenty-One Countries.”

But beware! Before you rush over to enjoy the Tuscan sun, Italy is ranked 20th in the number of employed women.

Sweden is No. 1 in women’s employment but is only 14th in full-time work and while Belgium is first in occupational integration and it is 18th in women’s employment.

Despite big changes over recent decades, workplace gender inequalities endure in the United States and other industrialized nations around the world.

There are vast differences in women’s economic fortunes in these countries and in no one country do women do well on all measures of equality.

So where is the best place for a woman to work and live?

“My answer depends on what a woman wants, how much education she has and what resources are available to support her and her family,” said Associate professor Pettit. “If you want to be a stay at home mother, Germany has a very extensive home leave policy.”

“ If you want to work full-time and have kids, the U.S. isn’t bad if you can afford quality child care. If you want to work part-time, Sweden and Denmark have very good child care. And if you want to have your husband involved in child care, Finland is a good choice.

“In the U.S. very well-educated women are more likely to use substitute labor for child care. But this is not the case for low-income women, and this can lead to a two-tiered economic system that penalizes many women.”

Workplace equality for women is not just about being included in the work force but on how they are included.

inequalities are created by facets of national social policy that either ease or concentrate the demands of care giving within households and shape expectations in the workplace, according to University of Washington sociologists.

“Our argument is gender inequality in the workplace is in a large part due to bearing and rearing children” said Pettit. “There are economically successful women everywhere but exactly how women manage the dual demands of work and home varies a lot.”

“ The biggest differences come when people have children and when those children are young,” she said.

“Some countries support working women publicly by providing child care. What we have in the United States are private solutions to child care. People who have more resources can maximize their employment and pay for child care.”

“Some nations are more generous and the US is way behind them in providing early childhood education, child care and paid maternity leave” she said.

Even so state subsidized family-friendly policies don’t guarantee women can achieve equality in the workplace. Some of these policies foster the growth of part-time employment – which is a dead end for advancement – work segregation, and wage inequality, the UW authors said.

Pettit and research scientist Jennifer Hook  examined levels of women’s employment, number of hours worked, occupational integration, and wage equality, draws on the ongoing Luxembourg Income Study.

Data collected from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Austria, Russian Federation, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United States.

Policies governing gender equality and inclusion in the workplace vary drastically in these countries, and Pettit contends that in order to understand gender inequality in the workplace it is necessary to consider to how a nation’s family policies affect the division of household labor.

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