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QUALITY OF LIFE

Revealed: The best (and worst) Italian cities to live in for women

A new 2021 quality of life index has ranked Italian provinces based on their liveability for women. Find out how your favourite part of Italy scored.

Published: 14 December 2021 11:25 CET
What are the best places to live in Italy as a woman?
What are the best places to live in Italy as a woman? Miguel MEDINA / AFP

As with so many things in Italy, provinces, cities and regions show substantial variation when it comes to quality of life.

Job opportunities, quality of public transport networks, climate, and leisure activity options are some of the key factors usually taken into account by surveys examining the pros and cons of living in different parts of Italy.

But when it comes to the best and worst places to live in Italy, one survey has taken into account factors that may improve the standard of living for female residents.

On Monday, the Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore released the 2021 edition of its annual quality of life survey; and for the first time this year, the survey looks specifically at quality of life indicators for women in different parts of the country.

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Metrics include life expectancy at birth, employment rates, the gender wage gap, rates of sexual violence, Olympic medals won by women and their overall performance in sports events, and percentages of female-run businesses and women in management roles across the public and private sectors.

Italy scores poorly in global rankings for equal opportunities at work and in politics, education and health, with high (and rising) rates of female unemployment and a persistently low percentage of women in top management roles.

The picture is not always the same across the country however, as the findings of Il Sole 24 Ore’s survey appear to illustrate.

Topping the list of best towns and cities for woman is the northeastern city of Treviso. It scores highest overall and for female infant life expectancy, and ranks among the top five Italian towns for female youth employment rates.

In second place is Prato in Tuscany, which has the lowest gender wage gap of any province in the country. Nearby Siena, which comes in third overall, is fifth for life expectancy and seventh for the percentage of company directorships held by women.

The top ten positions are predominantly occupied by provinces in the centre-north, with the regional capitals of Florence and Bologna coming in fifth and tenth place respectively.

Bigger cities like Milan and Rome did not make the top ten in this ranking – nor did any part of southern Italy.

The top ten Italian cities to live in as a woman.

The top ten Italian cities to live in as a woman. Source: Il Sole 24 Ore.

Here are the top five towns and cities to live in for women based on specific criteria:

Best female infant life expectancy rates at birth

  1. Treviso
  2. Perugia
  3. Prato
  4. Cagliari
  5. Siena

Lowest rates of (reported) sexual violence

  1. Treviso
  2. Perugia
  3. Prato
  4. Cagliari
  5. Siena

Highest female employment rates

  1. Bologna
  2. Trieste
  3. Bolzano
  4. Milan
  5. Aosta

Milan performs well when it comes to female employment rates.

Milan performs well when it comes to female employment rates. Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Highest female youth employment rates

  1. Bolzano
  2. Biella
  3. Ferrara
  4. Sondrio
  5. Cuneo

Smallest gender employment gap

  1. Aosta
  2. Cagliari
  3. Trieste
  4. Milan
  5. Nuoro

Smallest gender wage gap

  1. Prato
  2. Oristano
  3. Enna
  4. Rome
  5. Imperia

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Highest percentage of women directors in companies

  1. Savona
  2. Imperia
  3. South Sardinia
  4. Aosta
  5. Terni

Highest percentage of woman city managers

  1. Ravenna
  2. Cagliari
  3. Prato
  4. Bologna
  5. Modena

The bottom thirty spots are all occupied by central-southern towns and regions, with Caltanissetta in Sicily in last place.

Overall, regional capitals tend to perform relatively poorly compared to smaller cities and towns. Turin, Rome and Milan come in 24th, 27th, and 33rd out of 107. Palermo ranks 86th, and Naples comes a dismal 105th place.  

Given that the centre-north does best overall, it’s perhaps surprising that it’s northern cities that score the worst in areas like percentages of female-run companies and women directorships.

READ ALSO: Rome and Milan ranked ‘worst’ cities to live in by foreign residents – again

Milan ranks at the very bottom in the first of those two categories, with only 17.2 percent of its companies run by women; while Bolzano comes 106th and Trento 105th. When it comes to the female directorships of companies, these positions are slightly shuffled: Bolzano comes last place, Trento 105th, and Milan 103rd.

The top 50 Italian towns and cities to live in for women overall, according to the 2021 Il Sole 24 Ore survey:

  1. Treviso
  2. Prato
  3. Siena
  4. Savona
  5. Firenze
  6. Varese
  7. Pisa
  8. Ferrara
  9. Aosta
  10. Bologna
  11. Macerata
  12. Perugia
  13. Ravenna
  14. Trieste
  15. Cagliari
  16. Monza and Brianza
  17. Udine
  18. Arezzo
  19. Livorno
  20. Modena
  21. Nuoro
  22. Forlì-Cesena
  23. Biella
  24. Turin
  25. Lecco
  26. Ancona
  27. Rome
  28. Fermo
  29. Cremona
  30. Grosseto
  31. Verbano-Cusio-Ossola
  32. Padua
  33. Milan
  34. Pordenone
  35. Cuneo
  36. Reggio Emilia
  37. Novara
  38. Venice
  39. Lucca
  40. Pistoia
  41. Verona
  42. Terni
  43. Bolzano
  44. Vicenza
  45. Asti
  46. Trento
  47. Rieti
  48. Isernia
  49. Pavia
  50. Pesaro and Urbino

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ROME

Why Rome has been ranked among the least ‘smart’ cities in the world

A new global report ranks Italy's capital among the least 'smart' cities worldwide. What exactly does this mean?

Published: 9 April 2024 16:38 CEST
Why Rome has been ranked among the least 'smart' cities in the world

There are many things that make the Eternal City an enduring draw for millions of tourists every year, as well as for new residents – but modern innovations are not generally known to be among them.

So the results of a new study ranking Rome as among the least ‘smart’ cities in the world may not come as too much of a surprise to anyone familiar with it.

In fact, you might think this was appropriate enough for a city where people live amidst 3,000 years of history.

Still, Rome’s particularly low ranking at 133rd place out of 142 cities worldwide – placing between Sao Paolo and Lima – might also seem a little harsh.

The result was in stark contrast to other major European cities: Zurich in Switzerland took the number 1 spot, while Oslo, Geneva, Copenhagen, London and Helsinki all featured in the top ten.

READ ALSO: Milan and Rome ranked ‘worst’ cities for foreigners to move to – again

Madrid was ranked 35th, while Paris came in 49th place. Athens however scored less well, in 120th place, and the Bulgarian capital Sofia came 113th.

Italian cities rank poorly overall, as Milan – seen as Italy’s technological and business hub – came in at a lacklustre 91st, and the university city of Bologna came 78th.

What is this ranking?

The 2024 Smart Cities Index (SCI) is produced by the Smart Cities Observatory – part of the IMD’s Global Competitiveness Center – in partnership with the World Organization for Smart and Sustainable Cities (WeGO). 

Researchers combined real-world data and survey responses from residents of 142 cities around the world to show how technology allows cities to improve the quality of life of their population.

However, as the study’s authors point out, it is not just (or strictly) about the cities’ technological aspects.

The survey’s “balanced focus’” was also on “humane dimensions” of smart cities.

They include the overall quality of life, infrastructure, environment, health and safety, public transport, services available to the population, as well as governance.

READ ALSO: Why Milan is a much better city to live in than Rome

The ‘winners’ — cities that ranked the highest — are all “located in areas where social and economic environments are relatively predictable, even against the overall climate of global uncertainties,” the report states.

“They are also cities in which visible initiatives have been taken to facilitate the lives of citizens (e.g., by developing public transport networks or ‘eco compatible’ transport solutions), and to improve the overall ‘quality of life’.”

In that case, this survey seems similar to the many other ‘quality of life’ rankings in which Rome (and Milan) also fares badly every year.

The ranking ranges from ‘AAA’ for ‘smartest’ cities to ‘D’ — the lowest. Rome had a ‘CCC’ rating while Milan was awarded a ‘B’.

Interestingly, included in the survey are not only the best aspects of each city, but also the areas that its residents have designated as ‘priorities’ — that is, the ones that need improvement.

In Rome, the major concerns for residents were recycling, which was a priority for 64 percent according to the study, and public transport, for 62 percent.

Priorities highlighted also included road congestion and air pollution, which were factors bringing down the overall score for Milan, too.

Health services, school education and green spaces were not seen as issues for most Rome residents, meanwhile.

What do you think? Is this criticism justified and, if you live in Rome, do you find the positives outweigh the negatives? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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