Italy

Abstract

In 2011 the legal retirement age in Italy was raised from 65 years for men and 60 years for women to 67 years for both by the year 2019. This reform remains controversial. Extending the legal retirement age has caused an increase in employment rates for the 55-64 age group. However, unemployed workers in this age group face difficulties in finding a job and in re-entering the labour market. The demanding family responsibilities of Italian women and the persistence of the gender wage gap result in lower levels of retirement pensions. Moreover, increasing the retirement age without improving childcare services and addressing work-life balance policies negatively affects the working careers of young women. Extended working life policies should be matched with gender sensitive activation policies to ensure equal access to work and age management policies to achieve better working conditions for older workers.

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“…In Italy, though it increased since 2004, only 14% of children aged less than 3 had access to public kindergarten in 2010 (Istat, 2013a), with a much less coverage in the South of Italy, where only 5% of children aged less than 3 accesses kindergarten, against almost 18.6% in the Centre North. Maternity leaves are very generous in Italy, as they are compulsory and last for 5 months paying up to 80% of last wages for employees (Addabbo and Giovannini, 2013). In Spain, employed mothers are obliged to 6 weeks maternity leaves after childbirth with 100% of previous wages payment with a ceiling (€3,262.5 a month) and they can take other 10 weeks before or after childbirth (Escobedo and Meil, 2013).…”

“…In Italy, some positive signs can be found in recent policies implemented. To encourage women's employment, Law 92/2012 has introduced, in an experimental basis for 3 years, vouchers to use childcare services instead of parental leaves (Addabbo and Giovannini, 2013). However, only 1/3 of the 20 million euro devoted to this policy has been assigned in its first year (Prioschi, 2013), still it is to be determined if the lower number of vouchers is due to too strict criteria for eligibility or to a low number of applications.…”