Female employment is expanding, however women continue to face workplace disadvantages, such as interruptions, lower hours, and professional slowdowns at critical periods of their careers. This is the conclusion drawn from the report "Between nurseries, part-time jobs, and top management: why is workplace equality still a mirage?" issued by the Rome Business School's outreach research centre. In Italy, in addition to a 19.4% gender disparity, which is nearly double the European average, seven out of ten resignations after having a child are submitted by women, 29.3% of women work part-time (compared to 6.2% of males), and only 2.2% are CEOs. According to the survey, the issue of workplace equality is not about attracting women to the labor force, but about retaining and developing them over time. In 2024, the female employment rate rose further, increasing by 0.9 percentage points year on year in the second quarter (Istat-Cnel, 2025). The positive trend was most notable among women in the older age groups: the female employment rate increased by 6.4 percentage points overall from 2008 to 2024, with an increase of approximately 20 points among women over 50. However, progress among younger age groups was significantly more limited. Nevertheless, this development has not been sufficient to address the structural disparity within the nation. Italy continues to experience substantial regional disparities: in the second quarter of 2024, the North employed 62.8% of women, the Center employed 59.9%, and the South employed only 37.2% of women, resulting in a disparity of over 25 percentage points between North and South.