The balancing act of working parents (2019) | Phoderstock / Shutterstock
Parental entitlement policies represent a complex interplay of cultural, social, and economic priorities for far-right leaders in both Italy and the United States. On the one hand, many religiously minded conservatives uphold traditional family values, which would seem to support policies that promote marriage and the growth of families. At the same time, fiscal conservatives aim to minimize public spending, which frequently results in cuts to family friendly policies, like parental leave.
As an Italian living in the United States, I am particularly struck by the way both countries’ political rhetoric about family values frequently takes a selective and exclusive approach to family support.
The present debate on parental support in Italy is about who has the power to define the “ideal family” and what values should guide public policy. In Italy, fewer than 400,000 children were born in 2023—well below the replacement rate for maintaining the Italian population, as there were only 379,000 births compared to the 661,000 deaths. At this rate, by 2050, there will only be one child for every three elderly people.
Under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, the government has implemented a conservative family agenda focused on policies that encourage natality and promote traditional family structures. Her policies, such as tax breaks for families with more children, are intended to reduce the cost of births and make raising children more financially viable. However, the government’s focus on white, heterosexual, married couples inevitably raises questions about the inclusiveness of these policies. A government that supposedly celebrates motherhood does not always provide the resources required to support working mothers, who must balance their time with family with the need to earn money.
Still, Italy has one of the most generous parental leave systems in Europe, with up to five months of paid leave for mothers. (Fathers, by contrast, only receive 10 days of mandatory paternity leave at full salary.)
In essence, Meloni’s policy assumes that men are the primary workers in a family, and women are the primary caregivers. Women who are forced to work after giving birth face discrimination, limited employment opportunities, and inadequate government help for balancing their careers and family obligations. The Meloni government provides financial assistance to native Italian families, but limits assistance to immigrant families, single parents, and LGBTQ couples raising children.
Across the ocean, Donald Trump has placed a strong emphasis on traditional family values, but working families during his first administration were not supported by his administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy, weakened labor laws, and absence of significant reforms to the federal parental leave policy. As in Italy, American mothers juggling full-time employment and childrearing are disproportionately impacted by the lack of federal parental leave in the United States. Trump’s policies in his first term as president imposed a heavy administrative burden on the states and did not ensure uniform implementation or adequate funding for supporting families. Families with lower incomes faced unique difficulties. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2022, only 8 percent of workers in the lowest quartile of the workforce (the lowest 25 percent of earnings) had access to family remuneration, compared to 33 percent of workers in the highest quartile of the workforce.
Ultimately, the question is: Can conservative leaders reconcile their desire to uphold traditional family values with the need for social policies that understand and support all families? When this doesn’t happen, women, especially laboring women, will continue to bear the burden of this ideological conflict.
