More occupied more unequal: the crisis effects on women's work in Italy, paper selezionato per la 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association (Un)Making Europe: Capitalism, Solidarities, Subjectivities, Athens, 29 agosto-1 settembre, 2017.

This paper looks at the effects of the crisis on women's participation in the Italian labour market by considering policies, numbers and quality of work. Given the widespread belief that the crisis has hit mainly the male labour force, the analysis presented shows the ‘corrosive effect’ on the traditional weak female participation of women in the national labour market, even in a comparative European frame. The paper is focused on how the recent growth in female offer is, paradoxically, a symptom of a more serious trouble than a virtuous pushing factors. In fact, the increasing of female working participation in the “Crisis Eve” goes with a negative qualitative trend in working conditions, salary, gender pay gap, working time, etc. Also the policies adopted over the last years, regarding labour market and reconciliation, helped to increased inequalities, intergenerational and territorial gap, keeping Italy a “peculiar case” where the policies adopted over the last year are far from being gender (equality) oriented and the breadwinner model is not yet overcome. Being Italy one of the most industrialised countries with the highest gender inequality, the old structural problems overlap the new crisis through a regressive tendency both in terms of socio-economic participation and of gender equality.