Italy in 2024 edition
The data for 2024 Index is mostly from 2022.
The Gender Equality Index gives the EU and the Member States a score from 1 to 100. A score of 100 would mean that a country had reached full equality between women and men.
Progress in gender equality
Italy ranks 14th in the EU on the Gender Equality Index, with a score of 69.2 points out of 100 (1.8 points below the EU score)1.
Since 2021, Italy’s overall score has increased by 1 point. In the short term, the main driver of this increase has been the improvement in the domain of power (+ 3.8 points). Nevertheless, due to faster progress in other Member States, the ranking of Italy has decreased by one place since 2021.
Since 2010, Italy’s score has increased by 15.9 points, marking the largest overall increase among all Member States. This significant improvement has led to the greatest jump in the rankings, advancing Italy by seven places. This change occurred mainly due to improvements in the domain of power (+ 41.3 points).
Best performance
Italy’s best performance (9th out of all Member States) is in the domain of health, in which it scores 89.3 points. Since 2021, the country’s ranking in this domain has not changed, and its score has stalled. Within this domain, the country ranks best (5th place) in the sub-domain of health status, with 94.5 points. Italy’s highest score (99.1 points) is in the sub-domain of health access, in which it has gained three places in ranking since last year, currently standing in 6th place in the EU.
Most room for improvement
Gender inequalities are particularly pronounced in the work domain, with a score of 65.5 points. Since 2010, Italy has consistently ranked last among all Member States in this domain. Since 2021, Italy’s score for this domain has increased by 0.5 points. Within the work domain, Italy ranks the lowest (27th) in the sub-domain of participation, scoring 70.0 points, which is an increase of 1.1 points since 2021. However, the country’s lowest score (61.4 points) is in the sub-domain of segregation and quality of work, which ranks Italy as 22nd in the EU regarding this sub-domain.
Biggest improvement
Since 2021, the biggest improvement in Italy’s score has been in the domain of power (+ 3.8 points), in which it has moved up the ranking by one position, from 12th to 11th. The key drivers of this change have been recorded in the sub-domains of economic and social power (respectively, + 6.6 and + 6.0 points). As a result, the country’s rankings in these two sub-domains have risen: three places have been gained in economic power, with Italy now 6th in Europe, and two positions in social power, with Italy currently in 12th place.
A step backwards
Italy has not registered any negative change in the Index domain scores. However, the situation is generally characterised by stagnation in many domains, including the domains of work, money and knowledge, where Italy registers low scores (65.5, 80.6 and 61.0 respectively). Despite some small improvements in each of these domains (+ 0.5 points in the domain of work, + 0.3 points in the domain of money and + 0.2 points in the domain of knowledge), there has not been a significant improvement of gender equality in Italy. The only sub-domains in which there have been steps backwards are political power (− 0.6 points since 2021) and health status (− 0.1 points since 2021), without negatively affecting the scores of the relative domains.
Convergence
Upward convergence in gender equality means increasing equality between women and men in the EU, accompanied by a decline in the variability across Member States. This means that countries with lower levels of gender equality are catching up with those with the highest levels, thereby reducing disparities across the EU. Analysis of convergence patterns in the Gender Equality Index shows that disparities among Member States decreased over the period 2010–2022, and the EU countries continue their trend towards gender equality.
When looking more closely at the performance of each Member State, different patterns can be identified, reflecting each Member State’s relative improvement or slipping back of their Gender Equality Index score in relation to the EU average.
Italy is catching up. This means that its Gender Equality Index score was initially lower than the EU average2, but grew faster over time, reducing the gap.