PUBLIC POLICIES AND CORPORATE WELFARE: THE ITALIAN FIRMS' PROPENSITY TO HIRE WOMEN

By focusing on the Italian context, our research questions are: why does it happen? Do stereotypes still affect the propensity to hire women in Italy? Are women still fighting between work and family? The purpose of this work is to explore the Italian propensity to hire by gender and compare employees' perspective with that of employers. In order to add knowledge on this phenomenon, we analyzed the most recent data from Excelsior - UNIONCAMERE database. Our finding show some support for the caregiver and housewife stereotype in the Italian context. Moreover, we explore data from European Quality of Life Survey (2012) underlining that from working women perspective there are some evidences for recognize unfounded these stereotypes. The result of this exploration allows us to offer some insights on the research agenda of HR management. We suggest some reflections about the ways of fill gaps in female employment by asking HR managers in creating a more equal-opportunity culture within org

Female employment in Italy is still characterized by a strong vertical and horizontal segregation. And yet the relevance of a wider female participation in the labor market is widely recognized in the economic and organizational literature. Unfortunately, the stereotype of the ideal worker does not fit with that of the ideal father or mother. In this way, a work - family conflict arises and favors neither the individual nor the organization. According to these remarks, several stereotypes affect the allocation of family roles and the division of work in companies at the same time. In order to increase female employment, many legislative reforms were made in Italy in the last year. In Italy, the employers’ propensity to hire women is quite low and they are mainly inclined to hire women in part-time jobs. By focusing on the Italian context, our research questions are: why does it happen? Do stereotypes still affect the propensity to hire women in Italy? Are women still fighting between work and family? The purpose of this work is to explore the Italian propensity to hire by gender and compare employees' perspective with that of employers. In order to add knowledge on this phenomenon, we analyzed the most recent data from Excelsior - UNIONCAMERE database. Our finding show some support for the caregiver and housewife stereotype in the Italian context. Moreover, we explore data from European Quality of Life Survey (2012) underlining that from working women perspective there are some evidences for recognize unfounded these stereotypes. The result of this exploration allows us to offer some insights on the research agenda of HR management. We suggest some reflections about the ways of fill gaps in female employment by asking HR managers in creating a more equal-opportunity culture within organizations through corporate policies that may enhance the role of women at work. Obviously, this is a real challenge that requires managers to find some tools for covering the lack of public policies, where it exists, especially at the local level.