The report “Le equilibriste: la maternità in Italia nel 2021” by Save the Children analyses the situation of Italian women and mothers during a year of pandemic.
This year, 9 May is Mother's Day, while the 11th marks the tenth anniversary of the Istanbul Convention, the most important international treaty against violence against women. It is painful that precisely at this time the annual report by Save the Children on the condition of women in our country has been published, entitled Le equilibriste, because the data it contains are anything but encouraging.
The report highlights how the "cradle crisis" has long been a particularly acute phenomenon in Italy. The declining birth rate continues to set negative records, and there are no signs on the horizon to suggest a reversal of the trend.
According to an initial estimate, the number of births in 2020 would be 404,104, that is nearly 16,000 fewer than in 2019: a fall of 3.8 per cent. Births have declined everywhere, although the Autonomous Province of Bolzano boasts the highest birth rate, while Sardinia brings up the rear. Italy is also the European country with the "oldest" mothers at the birth of their first child, with an average age, based on the latest data, of 31.3 years.
Save the Children warns that "while the choice of whether or not to have children is a very personal one and depends on numerous variables, contextual conditions — including public policies and the availability of accessible, quality services — can considerably influence it." An example of the Italian situation? Only one in four children under the age of three attended an early childhood service, public or private, in the 2018/2019 educational year, and only 13.2 per cent of children had access to public nurseries and supplementary publicly run services.
The European Commission underlines that women, who in 2018 still earned on average 14 per cent less than men, continue to bear the burden of family care responsibilities and have difficulty entering and remaining in the labour market, with consequences that also affect them at pension level. A picture further worsened by the health crisis.
In 2020, as a result of the pandemic, 456,000 jobs were lost, of which 249,000 were held by women. Between 2019 and 2020, 96,000 mothers with minor children lost their jobs; four out of five had children under the age of five.
According to a survey carried out by the Politecnico di Milano, women experienced greater difficulties with smart working than men, also due to a heavier domestic workload and the difficulty of reconciling private and professional life. Other studies, including one conducted by the University of Milan-Bicocca, reveal that distance learning undertaken by their children placed a greater burden on mothers.
Although complete and consistent information is lacking, based on the fieldwork carried out by Save the Children's operators, women who went through a pregnancy during the pandemic found themselves facing hardships such as reduced check-ups during gestation, the ban on having their partner present at appointments and in the delivery room, and the closure of non-medical hospital services, with the consequent loss of any kind of alternative support.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, if progress continues at the current pace, it will take another 60 years to achieve full equality between the sexes. In 2020, Italy ranked 14th in the EU. A score below the average, but markedly improved: according to the institute, our country "is advancing towards gender equality at a faster pace than other member states."
The data contained in the report certainly give little cause for optimism, but they must serve as a spur to improve, to continue in the right direction. One of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals is precisely gender equality: if we want to achieve it by 2030, we cannot merely run — we must fly. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan allocates funds for education, but this is only a first step. Italy must also commit to honouring the pledges it made by signing the Istanbul Convention, so as to reach the point of protecting all women and all mothers.
