Gender unemployment catching-up: Empirical evidence from Italian regions

We study the persistence of the gender unemployment gap in the Italian regions in the 1992-2009 period. Results from unit-root tests analysis with structural break suggest that the process of gender catching-up in the unemployment rates is occurring in most of the regions but at different pace. Our findings indicate that there is substantial cross-region heterogeneity and the resulting picture does not match with that of a Center-North and South-and-Islands dichotomy in the Italian labour markets.