PTo challenge the future we need to team up. And the New European Manifesto for Female Entrepreneurship it is proof that women know how to team up to implement ambitious, concrete projects in everyone’s interest. Entrepreneurs and feminists, right and left, parliamentarians and women’s networks, chambers of commerce and young activists have allied themselves this time. And from the union a Manifesto was born which aims to encourage women and girls to set up new businessesto push forward those who want to make a career in technology, to seat many more at the tables that count.
Female entrepreneurship is essential for the economy
And, above all, to give more strength to that welfare system wanted by all because it redistributes the burden of family care, now crushed on women, in the couple and in society. This will free up more female employment which – by now it is known – it is a condition for pumping up the economy and GDP (as confirmed by the studies of theEuropean Institute for Gender Equality). The Manifesto declares that it aims to immediately bite politics and institutions, given the commitments that Italy has undertaken, with the Pnrr, to promote equality between women and men. And that these commitments at the end of August will pass to the judgment of the European Union.
In the cockpit of this new alliance is the Women’s Group of Confimi Industriawhich brings together around 45,000 manufacturing companies, and there are the women of Le contemporanee, a civic media that quickly made itself known as a powerful participatory project and accelerator of public initiatives.
The Manifesto aims to encourage women and girls to create new businesses, to push forward those who want to pursue a career in technology, to seat many more at the tables that matter (Getty)
Trailblazer in Europe
“The first step is to find a unique definition in Europe of what a women’s business is,” she says Vincent Frasca, entrepreneur in the Global Service area who chairs the Women’s Group of Confimi Industria. «In Italy we discount an old definition of women’s enterprise which does not take into account the current productive fabric. Not only that: as soon as we expand to Europe – where there is a different concept of women’s business from country to country – we risk suffering unfair competition from companies from other countries in the allocation of European funds. Through the Manifesto we want to be the first to raise the question and lead the way in Europe to a unique and modern concept of women’s business, which makes European measures more effective and brings many more capable and ambitious women into the world of Italian business”.
Next November the Manifesto, which has the support of the European Parliament in Italy, will arrive in Brussels, from where consultations with the Chambers of Commerce of the various countries will also start to involve female entrepreneurs from all over Europe.
More space for those with the pink sticker
«Through the Manifesto we also ask for increase the funds so far made available to women’s businesses at national and regional level and that resources are distributed equally between entrepreneurs and freelancers, the latter so far in a position to intercept more. We also ask that, in the light of the objectives of the Pnrr, a permanent fund be set up, that is to say disconnected from the initiative of the individual government and from the logic of time-based incentives, which vanish in a flash» adds Frasca.
Today, women’s businesses account for 22 percent of the total, mostly small and concentrated in services (Unioncamere data). Seven out of 10 female entrepreneurs say they find it difficult to reconcile private life and business, to have their credibility recognized compared to their male colleagues and to access credit (Confimi Industria survey). On these last two points, Frasca underlines that women’s financial management is characterized by responsibility and prudence, but these abilities are not adequately recognised. «For this reason, we want to start gender monitoring of the credit granted to women and men by banks and other institutions, to measure how much more likely women are actually to repay the loans received. For women who want to do business today it is vital to dialogue in the right way with the banks».
Female entrepreneurship: unity is strength
“We will not let go of the so-called pink sticker, as a requirement for rewarding public procurement tenders”, adds the co-founder of Le Contemporanee Valeria Manieri, who is an entrepreneur and expert in political communication, reiterating the pressure so that virtuous companies that create equality between men and women have effective advantages in winning tenders compared to those that do not. As for the long-term objective of the Manifesto, it is a matter of «experimenting with new training models, hubs and incubators for female entrepreneurship, with institutions, companies, the third sector and the academic world». The nucleus of a hub in Rome, the first, is already being drawn.
More cuts to the tax wedge
«This Manifesto makes us very proud, above all because it is the result of a common front that different worlds have finally managed to build. The world of women’s and feminist associations has not always paid attention to that of businesses, and this was a mistake, as if talking about businesses didn’t also mean talking about rights and gender issues» continues Manieri. «I am also proud because we have found a synthesis on issues on which politics is divided. The Manifesto says yes to further cuts in the contribution tax wedge and, at the same time, yes to the introduction of the minimum wage, to deal with the dramatic wage problem. And I am proud to have proposed, all together, an innovative approach to increase care and assistance services with virtuous public-private mechanisms”.
Voucher for kindergartens and carers
The Manifesto asks to commit all the 4.6 billion provided for by the Pnrr to build and upgrade nursery schools and kindergartens (a measure that seems, at least partially, to be on the high seas and therefore at risk). He asks for the establishment and financing of a voucher system which, on the French model of the Cesu, allows each family to pay for assistance and care services.
Manieri explains: «These vouchers can be used to pay for private nurseries – therefore to have more sustainable fees – or babysitting and condominium and area tagesmutter services. As well as to pay for assistance to the elderly by caregivers, with a maximum of five thousand euros gross per year for each client. The advantages are numerous: it is the families who choose how to use the money, the emergence of undeclared work is favored and the birth of entrepreneurial activities linked to care is stimulated”.
More digital skills
The objectives of the Manifesto are also very ambitious in terms of training and employment in the scientific and technological areas. Some of the targets: by 2026, zeroing of the gender gap in basic digital skills. 30 percent increase in female employment in Information and Communication Technology. 30 percent of female students enrolled in ICT degree courses, 45 percent of women at decision-making tables for the creation of smart cities and smart economy platforms. Manieri concludes: «Together, now we aim to make ourselves heard by politics. Let’s start from the deadlines of the Pnrr, but we are already looking at the 2024 European elections. We aim to become state law and law in the European Union».
Kindergartens and Pnrr: a bet to be won
An online petition pushes the government to build all the necessary crèches, also to help women work
Is Italy competing for the new nursery schools envisaged by the Pnrr? In short, do we risk giving back to Europe part of the billions allocated precisely to ensure a place in the nursery for at least 33 percent of boys and girls (a percentage that the EU, in the meantime, has rightly raised to 45 percent)?
Today Italy covers just 27.2 out of 100, with enormous disparities between North and South (Umbria reaches 44 percent, Campania not even 12, Istat data). To achieve the objective of the Pnrr, i.e. to create 264,000 new public places in nursery schools, by 30 June the Municipalities with projects eligible for funding should have awarded the works to the companies, but the procedures seem swallowed up by bureaucracy and delays, to the point that the deadline is now extended to 30 September. In any case, 3500 Municipalities without asylums did not participate in the tenders and more tenders were needed to be able to assign all 4.6 billion of the Pnrr.
The petition about Change.org, Make the nests, be quickaims precisely at urging the government to insist on building all the necessary nests immediately, at the cost of drawing from the whole cauldron of Community funds.
There is no dedicated structure
Captained by Sara Malnerich, author of the successful blog Mammedimerdaand supported by the co-founder Francesca Fiore, economist Azzurra Rinaldi, creative director Ella Marciello and teacher and activist Mila Spicolathe petition asks, indeed, to plan the construction of nests even beyond the deadline of the Pnrr in 2026, making use of the resources of the European Regional Development Fund and the Development and Cohesion Fund 2021-2027.
«In terms of nests, the Pnrr is discounting more scales of difficulty. Certainly the choice of not having allocated resources through a central commissioner structure, a structure headed by the Son of dutyto be clear, moved by the logic of circumventing the slowness and fragmentation of all public works in our country» comments Mila Spicola.
«It was preferred to act through tenders addressed to the Municipalities, called to present the projects. Especially in the South, where local authorities find it very difficult to put even community funds that have long maturities on the groundthe same administrative machine that is responsible for it was consulted, a machine without specialized technical personnel to govern such a technically complex matter and administrators with little interest in the nursery theme”.
Long waiting lists in the South
“In fact, in the South, the belief that nursery schools are useless because families don’t ask for them,” continues Spicola. «Here in Palermo, there are 1000 children on the waiting list: if public nurseries are set up, families send their children to us; if there are services, the services are used. Let’s make them, the nests! The OECD Pisa surveys certify that, especially in areas of greatest deprivation, those who attend nursery school have higher returns in subsequent school transitions, and this facilitates emotional, relational, social development. «The other dangerous narration is that nests are useless because Italy no longer has children» points out the economist Azzurra Rinaldi. «So they will have even fewer: all the data certify the opposite, that is, that those who want children are not put in a position to have them, also because they cannot count on public infrastructures such as nurseries.
According to the Labor Inspectorate, 65.5 per cent of women who leave work do so because they are overburdened by family care. Nests are crucial to enable women to work. And if the female employment rate increases, the wealth produced in families and in the country also increases: every euro invested in childcare services goes back 13 times. Let’s make the nests, let’s make them soon!”
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