Focus on Women: Employees

According to data from ISTAT’s Statistical Archive of Active Companies (ASIA) for 2022, the distribution of employees in the audiovisual sector is available, broken down by gender.

The percentage distribution of employees by gender in the Italian audiovisual core in 2022 shows a male prevalence, consistent with the general trend across the entire national production system (59.8% men among total companies). However, the audiovisual sector shows a slightly higher incidence of women than the average: women represent 42.6% of the total, compared to 40.2% across all industries.

Employee gender breakdown of the audiovisual core by sectors
Year 2022 (%)

* All data include Rai – Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.a. and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà for equal comparison, although classified as Public Offices and therefore not included in the Business Register.
Source: Symbola Foundation elaborations on Istat data

Analyzing the individual sectors, significant elements emerge:

• theatrical, video & TV distribution is the only sector where women are the relative majority (53.0%), indicating a particularly marked female presence;
• activities related to exhibition have an almost balanced composition (48% women), confirming a trend towards greater equality;
• in production, post-production, and TV programming & broadcasting, the presence of women is below 43%, indicating work contexts still characterized by a significant predominance of men.

Although a gender gap persists, the overall figure demonstrates that the audiovisual sector is more inclusive than the national average.

Examining the composition of employees in the Italian audiovisual core by sector reveals a percentage distribution of women and men that highlights notable differences.

In the theatrical, video & TV production sector, the share of female employees is 36.1%, compared to 38.9% of men, with a difference of 2.8 percentage points, indicating a greater concentration of men. An imbalance, albeit smaller, is also observed in post-production, where women account for 3.2% and men for 3.7%.

On the other hand, some sectors exhibit a greater concentration of women. This is the case for theatrical, video & TV distribution, where the share of women (4.9%) exceeds that of men (3.2%), and for the exhibition sector, where the share of female employees (9.7%) surpasses that of men (7.8%).

Finally, the TV programming & broadcasting sector accounts for almost half of the entire audiovisual core of employment, with a similar concentration between women (46.1%) and men (46.4%).

In conclusion, a reading of the sectoral composition within the two groups shows that women and men tend to concentrate in different production sectors: women are more present, in relative terms, in distribution and exhibition, while men are more represented in production and post-production, highlighting a different sectoral specialization between genres in the audiovisual core.

Distribution of women and men employed in the audiovisual supply chain by production sectors
Years 2022 (%)

*All data include Rai – Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.a. and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà for equal comparison, although classified as Public Offices and therefore not included in the Business Register.
Source: Symbola Foundation elaborations on Istat data