Pregnancy, maternity, and leave related to work-life balance for workers (Directive 92/85, relevant provisions of Directives 2006/54, 2010/18 and 2019/1158)

• Author: Renga, Simonetta
• Pages: 38-61

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5 Pregnancy, maternity, and leave related to work-life balance for workers

(Directive 92/85, relevant provi sions of D irectives 2006/54, 2010/18 and

2019/1158)41

5.1 General (legal) context

5.1.1 Surveys and reports on the practical difficulties linked to work-life balance

There have been no specific surveys over the last five years that provide insights into

difficulties that workers face in practice in relation to work-life balance issues.

The 2017 OECD Better Life Index states that an imp ortant aspect of work-life balance is

the amount of time a person spends at work. Evidence suggests that long work hours may

impair personal health, jeopardise safety and increase stress. In Italy, almost 4 % of

employees work very long hours, although that is less than the OECD average of 13 %.

The more people work, the less time they have to spend on other activities, such as caring

for children and elderly, leisure activities, eating or sleeping. Th e amount and quality of

leisure time is important for people's overall wellbeing and can bring additional physical

and mental health benefits. In Italy, on average, full-time workers devote 62 % of their

day, or 14.9 hours, to personal care (eating, sleeping, etc.) and leisure (socialising with

friends and family, hobbies, games, computer and television use, etc.), which is slightly

less than the OECD average of 15 hours. The report states that work-life balance can be

improved through free childcare and gives the example of the childcare service provided

by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance: the free care and entertainment service

is aimed at its employees’ children aged 4 to 12 years old; the services are located at the

ministry headquarters and in nearby external sports facilities during summer; it is

operational on weekdays when there is no sch ool; in the morning before starting work,

employees can leave their children in care and collect them at lunch time; if their working

hours involve an afternoon, they can also leave them after lunch and collect them in the

evening; the care activities are managed by qualified childcare staff. This improves

employee work-life bala nce, with 76 % of users valu ing the experience of the service by

their sons and daughters as ‘excellent’ and 21 % as ‘good’. In addition, the work

attendance rate of employees who use the service is higher on average than that of other

employees with children of the same age.42

The ISTAT 2018 report, Well-being equity and sustainability in Italy (BES) shows that in

2017, for every 100 women without children wh o are employed, only 75 .5 % of women

with at least one child under 6 years of age are employed; this rate has decreased in

recent years, meaning that the participation in the labour market of women with child ren

is decreasing.43 According to the 2014 ISTAT report on Daily life, on average, working

women dedicate 5.13 hours a day to household work, while working men spend 1.5 hours

on household tasks. According to the same report, there were positive signs for gender

equality among couples who are parents who both work, where the mother is aged

between 25 and 44 years. Furthermore, in 20 14, for the first time, the asymmetry index

of household w ork fell below the 70:30 split, with 67.3 % of the family work carried out

by women—a decline of 5 % compared to 2009 (71.9 %).44

41 See Masselot, A. (2018) Family leave: enforcement of the protection against dismissal and unfavourable

treatment, European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination, available at

https://www.equalitylaw.eu/downloads/4808-family-leave-enforcement-of-the-protection-against-

dismissal-and-unfavourable-treatment-pdf-962-kb and McColgan, Aileen (2015) Measures to address the

challenges of work-life balance in the EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway European

network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination, available at

https://www.equalitylaw.eu/downloads/3631-reconciliation.

42 http://test.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/11111111111.

43 https://www.istat.it/it/files//2018/12/BES2018-cap-03.pdf.

44 https://www.istat.it/it/files//2016/11/Report_Tempidivita_2014.pdf and

https://www.istat.it/it/files//2016/11/EN_Uso_tempo_2016_1.pdf.

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However, in Italy, the main difficulties are due to a lack of services. The structures and

services useful to workers who have care duties are greatly insufficient and access to them

is also too expensive compared to the average income of workers; all the more so for

women, wh ose income is normally lowe r than that of men. Furthermore, the quality of

public transport is often a problem.

Part-time work, which is not always a solution considering the economic aspect mentioned

above, is neither a worker’s right in the private sector nor available a s a temporary

measure. Moreover, except for the cases where leave (even unpaid) is granted to the

worker, the choice of giving up the job is a har d one, as re-entering the labour market is

not an easy task due to the high unemployment rate.

Traditional stereotypes concerning the roles of parents and the low percentage of women

in highly qualified, well paid jobs and in positions of responsibility does not help, but acts

as a multiplier factor.

The only answer to all this is to change the social stereotypes of the distribution of roles

within the family. This means impr oving leave provisions for men and improving services

and facilities, such as kindergartens. In particular, access to services such as crèches,

school holiday camps and other school activities, mainly depend on the income of the

parent/s and the offer is dramatically insufficient in comparison with the needs of families

(both of employed and self-employed parents).

5.1.2 Other issues

The main problem in Italy is not related to a lack of legislation on the reconciliation of work

and family life or on care leave. Indeed, domestic legislation is in line with the EU directives

and usually exceeds EU legislation. The main issue is the effectiv eness of the legislation:

workers tend to refrain from exercising their rights, as they are afraid of the consequences

from their employer. In particular, employees on fixed-term contracts or in project work

or other types of tempo rary work, are afraid that their contract will not be renewed. This

is especially true for younger generations: the majority of young people, the potential

parents, work in precarious jobs, lacking a secure and constant income as well as the

respective pension and insurance contributions. This deprives them of the choice to

exercise their rights.

Furthermore, it is quite unusual in Italy for fathers to take parental leave. The gender pay

gap and the fact that men are the main breadwinners has a great influence on this. As

parental leave is calculated as a percentage of the worker’s pay, it is more convenient for

families to lose part of the woman’s pay than of the man’s pay, b ecause in general, men

earn much more than women and the percentage of pay lost in the event of parental leave

is mostly higher for men than for women. As a measure to encourage fathers to take

parental leave, the maximum total length of the leave awarded per child was increased

from 10 to 11 months if the father uses at least three months (Article 32

Decree No. 151/2001). Moreover, to reduce the negative effects of parental leave on the

organisation or business, employers can offer fixed-term contracts, by way of exception

starting up to one month before the leave begins (or longer if provided by collective

bargaining), so that the worker taking leave can train his or her replac ement. For small

companies (employing less than 20 workers), a 50 % reduction in contribution is provided

for the recruitment of persons replacing workers on parental leave (Article 4 Decree No.

151/2001).

Another problem is that paternity leave is allowed to fathers only as an alternative to

maternity leave in very special cases: that is, if the mother dies or become s seriously ill,

or in the event of the mother abandoning the child, or if the child is in the exclusive custody

of the father. This limits the rights of fathers and the promotion of a better balance in care

duties as well as reconciliation of work and family life. On the other hand, the special