Every afternoon in a Milan suburb, Diego Di Franco picks up his children from school, manages after-school activities and prepares dinner, tasks traditionally associated with Italian mothers.
The routine is unremarkable in Italy, except that he is a father and he shares it online. Italy's parliament in February rejected a proposal to equalize maternity and paternity leave, but Di Franco and a growing number of what are being called?"dad influencers" are reshaping how fatherhood looks in a country still struggling ?to reconcile work, family and gender equality. In the euro zone's third-largest economy, led by its first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who has a ?9-year-old daughter, women ?shoulder most care work and face one of Europe's widest gender employment gaps, a drag on long-term growth as ?the population ages.
Economists and activists say the situation is exacerbated by a stark policy imbalance: five months of maternity leave versus just 10 days of paternity leave. An opposition-backed proposal to introduce equal, non-transferable and fully paid parental leave for mothers and fathers, modeled on reforms adopted in countries such as Spain, was turned ?down by 137 votes to 117 by the center-right majority, citing budget constraints.
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