The Promotion of Gender Equality within Local Development ...

The promotion of gender equality within local development processes: ItalyItaly is, therefore one of the countries with thelowest levels of fertility, although in the last 10years the trend finally seems to be reversing anddiminishing. In 2006, the estimate for the averagenumber of children per woman was equal to 1.35(1.34 in 2005). This is the highest level recordedin Italy in the last 15 years and is the result of agrowing trend begun in 1995, the year in whichItalian fertility touched the all-time minimum witha value of 1.19 children per woman.The recovery seen in the last few years is theproduct on the national scale of more similarreproductive behaviours between the variousareas of the country, in particular between theCentral Northern zone and the South. The resultobserved, in fact, can be attributed to the regionsof the North and the Central area, considering thatin the period between 1995 and 2005, the averagenumber of children per woman passed into thisdivision, respectively, from 1.05 to 1.34 and from1.07 to 1.29. In the same period, on the other hand,the Southern regions recorded a decrease: from1.41 to 1.35 children per woman.2.2. The labour marketSupport for participation, particularly femaleparticipation, in the labour market will haveto be one of Italy’s main focus points in the nearfuture.The activity rate was equal to 62.7% in 2006 anddividing the groups by gender, we can observethat the rate of female participation was muchlower (50.8%) with respect to the male rate(74.6%).The number of inactive women is still very highhowever, approximately half of the femalepopulation over 15 years of age, emphasizing astrong potential labour force pool that could beactivated to support employment levels and toanswer to the growing friction between laboursupply and demand, even from a merelyquantitative point of view.The gender gap is defined as a structuring elementin the profile of participation in the Italian labourmarket.FIGURE 1Italy - Activity rates 15-64Source: ISTAT, Ongoing Survey on the Labour Forces4