Measuring Patriarchy in Italy*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Patriarchy is an abstract concept; however, its consequences are visible and substantial in society in an endless list of events that mainly affect women’s lives, but do not exclude men’s life experience either. By defining a patriarchy index for Italy—for the first time ever—this article aims at describing patriarchy, from an economic perspective, as a complex aggregate, based on several stereotypes, represented by a series of variables related to behaviours, classified in four domains: the degree of patrilocality, the dominance of men over women, the dominance of older over younger generations, and socio-economic domination. As it is structured, the patriarchy index might complement the more famous Gender Equality Index (GEI), calculated by the European Institute of Gender Equality (EIGE), with a measure that focuses on the ‘invisible’ component of gender inequality. This case study on Italy represents an opportunity to confirm the well-known socio-economic dualism between regions in the North and South from a gender perspective. Regions in the North and Central regions score very close results and show that, although patriarchal stereotypes are still present and strong, patriarchy is becoming minoritarian. On the opposite side, the South still shows strong and majoritarian patriarchal patterns.