Female poverty in Italy: a reality not to be forgotten
Female poverty in Italy is a real problem, which should not be underestimated. Poverty, in fact, does not affect men and women in the same way, and our country unfortunately has a very high gap in the risk of poverty to the detriment of women.
This gap settles on a percentage of 2.7% and leads Italy to rank fifth in the risk of poverty for women, immediately after Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Cyprus. On the contrary, the countries where the gap is to the disadvantage of men are only Denmark, Spain, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Here are some data:
Sexual discrimination: one of the key themes of female poverty in Italy
If we can talk about the phenomenon of specifically female poverty it is because discrimination on the basis of sex, in Italy as in many other countries, is still very high, despite the progress that has been made with the necessary laws on equality.
And "a fact: women do not have the same access to resources (from credit to inheritance rights) as men, their salaries are on average lower and for many of them the work is not paid at all. Women are often forced to work illegally, without any form of insurance or social protection, while remaining responsible for home and family, for a common way of thinking.
And if it is certainly not easy to measure female poverty in Italy, since the assessment is made on the basis of households, it is still essential to investigate all the variables that unfortunately make this umpteenth phenomenon of discrimination possible.
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Female poverty in Italy: Istat data
The latest Istat data are truly worrying: in 2016, women in absolute poverty in Italy were about 2 and a half million (7.9% of the entire female population).
Among these, 23.6% fall into the age group between 18 and 35 years, 17% between 36-45 years, 12.5% between 46-55 years, 6.6% between 56 -65 years and 12.2% over 65. And if we talk about minors in a state of absolute poverty, the percentage is that of 6% of the entire Italian population.
These women live in extreme conditions and need not only economic but also psychological support, given the extreme hardship they face every day in the struggle for survival, often not only for themselves but also for their children.
When female poverty in Italy affects mothers
There are many mothers who find themselves having to live in a state of absolute poverty, with the responsibility of the life of one or more children, forced to ask for the help of strangers or to look for it alone, on the street. One child out of eight, in fact, he finds himself living in total poverty.
Ivano Abbruzzi, president of the Tree of Life Foundation, underlines in this regard: "In 90% of our interventions, mothers are our interlocutors, and they are always the driving force behind a family in serious difficulty. When a mother experiences a condition of discomfort, children are the first to suffer from it. Experiencing a period of deprivation, even a brief one, can have negative effects on the whole future life path. And, depending on the child's stage of development, the effects of poverty will be different ”.
Helping a mother is therefore the first step in helping all the children she is responsible for, guaranteeing them a "childhood worthy of the name and hope for a different future."
International Day against Poverty: the initiative against female poverty in Italy
October 17 is the International Day Against Poverty. The L "Tree of Life Foundation, which has been active for years in the fight against poverty in families, launches an" important awareness campaign with the hashtag #iodonofiducia, which continues the initiative of 2016 (which you can see here) with a new experiment social.
The protagonists are a mother and a child: at the center is the importance of the concept of trust, the one that is lacking both on the part of the possible beneficiary and on the part of women in difficulty, so it is increasingly difficult to have confidence in oneself. Solidarity is the most precious asset and all children have the right to smile.
