Gender Equality and Public Policies

Gender inequalities in the employment likelihood and employment positions are still persistent as evidenced by gender equality index and they have been exacerbated by the impact of pandemics. At the basis of the different problems-underrepresentation of women, difficulty of balancing work and family obligations, lack of protection of women in workplace-there is a structural discrimination of women both within labour market and family life, ossified on the one hand in traditional patterns of work organization built on male breadwinner model, and on the other in a stereotyped conception of gender roles. The two aspects are inextricably connected. The real point is the sexual division of work, paid work for men and paid and unpaid work for women. This chapter reconstructs the existing employment inequalities by gender and refers to the different policies enacted to address the access to the labour market and the inequalities that characterize women’s employment in the access to apical positions and in terms of wage gap. To what extent have the policies been effective and what alliances should be created to let the objective of improved gender equality be reached?.