Project focuses on reconciling work and family life for working mothers

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In September 2004, the International Centre for the Study of Family Issues (Cisf) held a conference to present the results of a project conducted in Brianza (Milan), aimed at supporting the reintegration into employment of working mothers after maternity leave. The project highlighted major problems faced by working mothers in Italy and the difficulty of combining their needs with the rigidities of the workplace.

Italy devotes a smaller proportion of its public expenditure on family-related measures than most other EU Member States. Family expenditure does not amount to even 1% of Italian GDP and the structures provided for childcare and assisting parents are often insufficient to allow parents to work. According to a survey carried out by the Istat statistical institute (based on 2002 data), only 57% of women employees go back to work after they have their first child, and 69.2% of those who do no return resign on a voluntary basis. They main reasons given are a wish to stay close to their child (48.5% of those who resigned) and incompatibility between working and family life (20.4%). Among those who go back to work, 35.7% find it very difficult to combine family and working life (IT0306204F). The main problem, identified by 44% of these working mothers, is the rigidity of working time.

A conference was held in Milan on 21 September 2004 to present the results of an experimental project carried out in Brianza (a highly-productive area of the Lombardy region) between November 2003 and September 2004, which sought to develop ad hoc solutions to encourage working mothers to go back to work after maternity leave.

The project was carried out by International Centre for the Study of Family Issues (Centro Internazionale Studi Famiglia, Cisf) in collaboration with other institutions - (Unioncamere, Università Bocconi of Milan and Compagnia delle Opere of Brianza - and several associations operating in the field of family issues- such as the Family Counsellors' Network (Felceaf) and Family Association Network (Cofelb) - plus sectoral trade union organisations.

The project enabled the provision of counselling and information services to support companies and women workers during the process of reintegration in the workplace after maternity. The project found that many women do not know the possibilities and the opportunities offered by the law to combine family and working life. However, while many women do not know about these issues, it is also the case that the labour market is not completely willing to accept them.

Recent legislation provide, in theory, the possibility for working parents to dedicate more time to caring for their children (eg through parental leave, working time flexibility and part-time work) but the Brianza project indicates that, in practice, companies and sometimes also trade unions make it very difficult to use these measures - for example, many sectoral collective agreements lay down strict limits on the use of part-time contracts. The workers who benefit from the opportunities provided for by law are, very often, penalised in terms of their career, according to the project. When they go back to work after the end of the parental or maternity leave they are shifted to professionally marginal roles, and very often become part-time workers covering such marginal roles. Employers often ask for a complete devotion to work, an absolute priority that prevents workers from enjoying the opportunities provided for by the law and from spending more time with their families.

According to Francesco Belletti, the director of Cisf, labour flexibility has so far met only productive needs and not family and workers’ needs. Maria Grazia Fabrizio, provincial secretary of the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati dei Lavoratori, Cisl), underlined a need to have more flexible 'time in the city', especially given frequently lengthy commuting times. 'Time in the city' should be modified in order to permit a better reconciliation between family and working life.