The project is aimed at encouraging women’s participation in the labour market by supporting women aged over 45 blocked in their career path or away from the workplace for a long period; a specific aim is to improve their professional and motivational competences and to go over possible blocks or forced renunciation to develop new career opportunities and professional satisfaction.
These steps are addressed particularly to women, employed in the public sector in a part-time position who entirely provide to the care work within the family (housework, care of children and elderly people) and who are often trapped in career paths and discouraged from investing in the professional sphere. At the end of the project, an operational model will be defined, named Individual Career Project, that each participant will be able to manage by her self with the support of skilled adult educators.

Main aims of the project are:

• To carry out a mapping;
• To collect data and information on the strategies adopted by women regarding the care needs they provide to (for instance the care work of children and elderly people in comparison to the male labour force in Trento);
• To study the main reasons of the blocks that organizations sometimes impose to female workers forced to take a reduction in working hours because of the impossibility, or choice sometimes, to make use of public or private care services. Therefore, the inter-professional dynamics will be determined that reduce the possibilities of a balanced management of part-times, also where there is a high use of them, for instance in the public sector;
• To identify the educational needs that could give the best opportunities of both lateral and vertical mobility within the organizations in order to reach a professional growth. However, the project will focus on the public sector in order to get information aimed at guaranteeing the best negotiation between the individuals and the organization;
• To plan and experiment with supplemented paths of education, sensibilization and guidance addressed to women over 45, employed in part-time position or in leave, with a specific concern in going back to a full time working position. These steps will be carried out on the basis of the results raised from the research activity as well as from the testimonies of the people in chief of human resources.

Researchers: Silvia Gherardi (coordinator), Alberto Zanutto (referent), Annalisa Murgia, Manuela Perrotta, Giulia Selmi (Department of Sociology and Social Research)
Franco Fraccaroli (co-coordinator), Stefano Cassai, Giuseppe Iandolo, Patrizia Pizzi, Paola Venuti (Department of Cognitive Science and Education)
Period: 2007
Funding: European Social Fund