Gender Equality: Best practices from Northern European Countries and implementation in Italy

Women are a relevant part of society, but still fighting to enter and be equally treated and considered in high positions, especially in a male-dominated industry. From the second half of the 20th century, international legislation on the rights of women started to develop (e.g., the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of discrimination against women). The Northern European countries (hereinafter NEC) are leaders in gender equality. In all the NEC, legislation requires public authorities to promote gender equality. The regulatory framework for promoting gender equality consists of a dual strategy: a gender mainstreaming strategy and a strategy of special projects and services, designed for certain groups of women or men or gender minorities. Reports show how Italy is still far from achieving gender equality or even Nordic standards. (OECD, 2018) Italian companies are responsible for a traditionalist point of view and “anti-gender equality” approach, which mainly penalize women's careers, especially when women are inspired to higher positions. The situation of women in the labour market shows a high rate of discrimination, even though women make up almost half of the workforce and more than half of all university graduates in the EU are women, their participation in supreme and decision-making bodies in most member states is still low. (Giedrė Raišienė et al., 2020)