Foreign women, in Italy female workers receive a income gross annual average of 12.788 euros, the 30,5% less than male foreign workers. Furthermore, half of foreign women are employed in only four professions: domestic worker, carer, cleaner and waitress. These are the data that emerged from the seminar “Immigrants and Work”, organized in Rome by the National Council of Actuaries, chaired by Tiziana Tafaro, in collaboration with Noi di Rete Donne, promoted by Daniela Carlà. The numbers show a double inequality: foreign women not only earn less than men, but they are also highly concentrated in precarious jobs, And with poor protections.
Foreign women in Italy: employment and the gender gap
It is known that the employment rates in Italy are still well below the European average, but it is important to remember that this low performance is partly due to the fact that almost half of Italian women, 46,5%, are still not working. While the male employment rate in Italy is 9 percentage points away from the European average, the The employment gap between Italian and European women is almost double: 53,5% versus 70,2%. While these data are widely discussed, less attention is given to what our labor market offers to foreigners, and even less to what it reserves for foreign women.
If the so-called gender gap is already evident among Italians - men earn an average of 29.409 euros gross per year, while women stop at 19.902 euros - for foreign workers, the wage gap is even more marked. The average annual salary for foreign men is around 18.400 euros, while that for women is only 12.788 euros. An average difference of 30% between the salaries of foreign men and women, which remains constant among the different nationalities of origin, from Pakistanis to Moldovans. The only community that is an exception is the Chinese one, where women earn only 5,3% less than men. In reality, however, Chinese workers are those who earn the lowest salaries among all foreign workers, with an average of 12.167 euros gross per year.
Foreign women: the secondary market
As highlighted by Luca Di Sciullo, president of the Idos Study and Research Center, foreign workers suffer the effects of a double stigma: being women and, at the same time, being foreigners. A discrimination that does not only concern the levels of participation in the labor market, but also the quality of employment. The foreign, regardless of gender, in Italy they are often relegated to the secondary market, that of all those professions that Italians no longer want to do. They are the so-called "5P jobs": precarious, heavy, dangerous, poorly paid and socially penalized jobs. One can think of laborers, labourers, porters, all those involved in housework or kitchens. These are professions with a greater risk of exposure to accidents at work, but the balance for the two-year period 2022-2023 is positive: there was a decrease of 2,9% for the total number of foreign workers, with a drop of 16% if only women are considered. The decrease, however, is even more marked for Italian workers: a drop of 18,9% overall and 29,4% for women.
Foreign women: care work
In Italy, foreign women are particularly concentrated in a subset of the jobs of the 5P: those of theassistance and care for the elderly and children. The professions of carer, domestic worker, cleaner and waitress absorb 50% of foreign workers. This phenomenon is not surprising, considering that Italy is among the last European countries with regard to conciliation policies. Unable to rely on the State, Italian women who want to work, and can afford it, delegate the care of their children and home to foreign workers. Another alarming fact is the rate of inactivity among foreign women, which stands at 43,2%, against 16,5% of men. Again according to Di Sciullo, many of these women are confined to the house to take care of the children, while others, more than men, are employed in undeclared work.
Valeria Vittimberga, general manager of theINPS – the National Institute for Social Security – has defined the gender pay gap between female and foreign workers in Italy as a “flagrant inequality”. It is a dynamic that sheds light on a labor market not always inclusive, and which often penalizes the most vulnerable categories.
