Italy's Gender Pay Gap in 2026: Women Earn 25% Less in Annual Earnings

Laura Mattarella, daughter of Italian President Sergio Mattarella, has delivered one of her most explicit critiques yet of the country's workplace equality landscape, declaring that salary gaps and maternity penalties remain "glaring examples" of how far the nation has to travel toward genuine gender parity—despite constitutional promises of equal treatment.

In an interview with Rai's Tg3 broadcast on March 8, 2026—coinciding with International Women's Day and the 80th anniversary of Italian women's voting rights—Mattarella addressed structural inequality with rare directness for a member of the president's family.

Why This Matters

• Salary gap persists: Women in Italy earn 25% less than men in annual earnings (€22,023 vs €29,236 from 2024 INPS data), though the hourly gap is narrower at 5.6%. The difference reflects fewer hours worked due to part-time contracts and career interruptions.

• Maternità still a career penalty: Nearly every working mother interviewed reports professional setbacks tied to childbirth.

• Leadership remains male-dominated: Women hold only 34% of senior management positions and just 22.6% of CEO roles in 2026.

• EU transparency deadline looming: Companies with 150+ employees must submit gender pay gap reports using 2026 data by June 2027.

From Private Citizen to Public Voice

Mattarella, 58, has spent more than a decade accompanying her father to state functions following his election in February 2015. A trained lawyer who surrendered her professional practice to fulfill ceremonial duties after her mother's death in 2012, she has until recently maintained near-total public silence. This interview marks only her second on-camera appearance—and by far her most pointed commentary on structural inequality.

The timing carries weight: March 8, 2026 marks 80 years since Italian women first cast ballots in national elections. That milestone, Mattarella noted, "was the conclusion of a very long journey that finally recognized the role of women in Italian society." Yet the recognition remains incomplete.

What This Means for Italian Women

"On paper, we have full equality," Mattarella stated. "In practice, we still have a long road ahead."

The wage gap she cited is no abstraction. Latest data from Italy's National Social Security Institute (INPS) shows women earned €22,023 annually in 2024, compared to €29,236 for men—a gap of nearly 25%. The disparity narrows when calculated hourly (ISTAT reports 5.6%), but that figure masks the reality that women work 15% fewer paid hours due to part-time contracts and career interruptions.

Among executives and managers, the divide becomes a chasm. Women in dirigente roles (management-level positions under executive leadership) earn up to 30% less than male counterparts, according to employment observatory ODM Consulting. The Grant Thornton "Women in Business 2026" report confirms only 3.2% of company presidents in Italy are women, though the figure rises to 22.6% for CEOs—still well below parity.

Mattarella's assessment: "We have few women at the top, and they're still treated as exceptions. We see major headlines for the first woman president of the Constitutional Court, the first woman president of the Court of Cassation, or the first woman Prime Minister. It's right to celebrate those milestones, but they're still framed as anomalies."

True equality, she argued, will arrive only "when we discuss women who've reached the top based on their résumés, not as outliers."

The Motherhood Trap

The most personal segment of the interview addressed maternità—a word that in Italian connotes both biological motherhood and the bureaucratic leave system surrounding it. Mattarella, who has navigated the balance herself as a mother, spoke candidly: "I experienced it as an obstacle. It was difficult to find equilibrium… and apart from very rare exceptions, I don't know a single woman—not one friend—who hasn't told me she paid a professional price for becoming a mother."

Italy's legal framework for maternity protection has improved substantially in the past two years. Recent parental leave reforms include:

• 80% salary compensation for three months of parental leave (usable by either parent) for children born after January 1, 2025

• Extended leave window: Starting in 2026, parents may claim leave until the child reaches 14 years of age (previously 12 years)

• "Bonus Mamme" payments: Working mothers with two or more children receive annual payments of €720 in 2026 (increased from €480 in 2025). Mothers of three or more children receive a payroll contribution exemption—capped at €3,000 annually—until the youngest reaches 18.

Yet financial incentives have not dismantled cultural resistance. LinkedIn data for 2025 shows women's share of leadership roles flat at 31.3%, unchanged from 2024. The Global Gender Gap Report 2025, published by the World Economic Forum, ranks Italy 85th globally and estimates it will take more than 120 years to close the gap at current rates.

Rebalancing Roles, Not Just Policies

Mattarella reserved considerable emphasis on gendered expectations around labor and care. "There cannot be a male model for work and a female model for the home," she said. "Roles must be absolutely rebalanced. This requires sustained cultural and social effort—constant commitment at the educational and formative level, for both men and women, so that equality becomes truly effective."

Her framing echoes findings from FIASO, the federation of Italy's public health authorities, which reported in its 2026 gender monitoring report that women occupy 34.87% of strategic management positions in hospitals and local health agencies—a modest uptick from 32.97% in 2025, but still far short of representation proportional to the female share of the healthcare workforce.

The pattern repeats across sectors. Women dominate Chief HR Officer roles (44.1%) but remain scarce among presidents of the board (3.2%) and general directors in both public and private organizations. The phenomenon, widely referred to in Italian policy discourse as the "soffitto di cristallo" (glass ceiling), reflects occupational segregation: women cluster in lower-paid, lower-status positions, while men disproportionately ascend to decision-making posts.

An Impoverished Society

Mattarella concluded with a practical argument: "Until all women are able to emerge, Italian society as a whole will remain impoverished."

It's a pragmatic observation gaining traction among policymakers. The European Union's Pay Transparency Directive, adopted in 2023, enters enforcement in 2026. By June 7, 2027, companies with at least 150 employees must file their first gender pay gap reports using 2026 salary data. Italy's government has already drafted preliminary legislation to transpose the directive into national law, announced in January 2026. Firms that reveal unjustified disparities will face corrective action—and potential penalties.

Meanwhile, corporate Italy has made incremental progress in board representation. As of 2024, women hold 43% of seats on the boards of listed companies, surpassing both the EU average and the 40% minimum target set by the EU's Gender Balance Directive for non-executive directors by mid-2026. But board seats, critics note, do not automatically translate into operational authority or executive pay equity.

A Rare Spotlight

Laura Mattarella's decision to speak on camera—twice in three months, following a December interview with Vogue Italia—represents a departure from the low profile she has maintained since 2015. The Quirinal Palace, seat of the Italian Presidency, does not grant the president's family formal political power, but their symbolic weight is considerable. Her intervention on Women's Day signals a willingness to lend that symbolic capital to a cause that, by her own accounting, remains unfinished.

Her words carry particular resonance in a country where part-time work disproportionately affects women (often involuntarily), where career interruptions for childcare are almost exclusively female, and where the path from university degree to corner office remains statistically far smoother for men. The INPS 2024 employment report found that among university graduates, the gender pay gap reaches 16.6%—more than triple the national hourly average—suggesting that education alone cannot overcome structural bias.

What remains uncertain is whether Mattarella's public intervention will accelerate policy changes and cultural shifts, or whether it will serve primarily as documentation of ongoing inequality. The answer will depend on choices made across Italian society—in boardrooms, ministries, educational institutions, and households—far beyond the Quirinal's walls.