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This article deals with the relation between labour market regulation and the dynamics of overall employment and unemployment in continental Europe. We investigate the impact of the reforms of employment protection systems and activating welfare policies and test the integrative power of marginal labour market deregulation, assessing occupational outcomes of changing workforce exposure to unemployment and fixed-term contracts. Thus, particular attention is paid to the possible effect of ' institutionally driven' labour market segmentation, mirrored by the national discrepancy in employment protections of workers with distinct contractual arrangements and by the ratio of expenses on GDP in active versus passive labour market policies. We use pseudo-panel data based on European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) (1992–2008) and apply linear fixed effect (FE) models with lagged independent variables. The deregulation measure—the insider-outsider differentials—is based on the OECD employment protection legislation index (EPL 2013). The overall findings indicate a detrimental effect of unbalanced passive and active labour market policies, a negative trend of permanent employment, and a 'honeymoon effect' of partial and targeted deregulation measures whose effectiveness on overall employment, if any, appears to be progressively weakened over time. The responsiveness of employment conditions to marginal EPL variations as well as to previous 'unstable employment situations' is significantly higher in Southern Europe. Temporary employment, if compared with unemployment, may still play a role in reducing individual subsequent unemployment risks, but its 'integrative effect' is hardly confirmed if we view fixed-term contracts as a stepping stone towards stable insertion into the primary labour market.

Using longitudinal data from the Bank of Italy that cover the period from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates the wage- and career implications of temporary jobs across the entire wage profile via unconditional quantile regression models and dynamic panel probit models. Building on Autor’s contributions, we consider temporary jobs to be a Labour Market Intermediary that deals with job-matching problems, such as information asymmetries, search cost reductions, worker-side adverse selection, and pay-productivity gaps. Assuming that wage is a proxy for workers’ productivity, we examine the chances that temporary workers who are located in different quantiles of wage distribution have of making the transition towards a stable employment position in the primary labour market. Results clearly indicate that temporarily employed individuals suffer significant wage- and career penalties. Not only are these individuals overly concentrated in the lowest decile of wage distribution, but the career penalty associated with temporary jobs also remains stable independently of the wage/productivity quantile to which the workers belong. If firms use FTC or TWA at all, they do so to remove less productive workers, whose work contract is not renewed once expired. In light of this evidence, it is clear that the hypothesis—proposed in the economic literature—that temporary employment contracts might serve as a screening tool to identify the most productive workers who would then be offered a stable position in the primary labour market does not hold in the highly dualised labour market of Southern Europe.

Our work aims to bring together two research fields: the debate concerning different labour market flexibilization strategies and the determinants of training chances. The purpose of our work is therefore to assess the trade-off between temporary employment and training opportunities in a comparative analysis of three groups of countries characterized by different levels of labour market segmentation and training coverage. Particular attention is paid to the impact of the 2008 economic downturn in shaping training opportunities for contingent workers. Our research questions are investigated using three pooled rounds of the European Social Survey (2004, 2006, and 2008). While regression analyses partially confirm the negative effects of fixed-term contracts (FTCs) on training opportunities, a counterfactual analysis shows a retrenchment in training provisions among temporary workers only in strongly segmented labour markets, where FTCs constitute a more homogeneous marginal group, highly stratified in terms of age, gender, unemployment experience, and social class.

In-work poverty (IWP) received increasing attention over the last years, both in political and scientific debates, not least due to its overall increase. This article documents the diffusion, persistency and the drivers of in-work poverty in Italy from 2000 to 2016, based on the Survey on Household Income and Wealth of the Bank of Italy (SHIW data). In line with recent publications, IWP affects around 10 to 12% of the relevant working population, but it is strongly stratified by individual and family level characteristics, like education, employment position and contract, as well as by the household composition. The presence of a (whatever type of) second income plays an important role for keeping families out of poverty. Moreover, IWP reveals a very sticky phenomenon, leading not only to the accumulation of inequalities but also to their persistency over time. Interestingly enough, the strong persistency can almost exclusively be attributed to structural individual factors and the household.composition, rather than to genuine state dependency. The article concludes with a discussion of these findings in terms of policy implications.

Partial and targeted labor market deregulation as undergone in Italy during the last two decades has created a strong cohort cleavage on the labor market as regards the risks of a precarious work career. In explaining the logics underlying the different kinds of labor market deregulation, the literature stresses the alternative between labor market adjustment based on wage inequality and job insecurity. Flexible and unequal labor markets in the English-speaking countries are opposed to the continental-European ones, where wage differentiation is limited but deregulation has been \"at the margins\". Notwithstanding the theoretical debate, there is still relatively little empirical evidence regarding the level of inequality in wages between \"contingent\" and \"secure\" work positions, especially in Italy, although, given the ongoing debate, one would expect a trade-off between job security and wage level to be operating. We use the Italian component of the 1995-2001 ECHP panel waves, the SHIW panels 2004-2006, 2006-2008 to provide an empirical based analysis of the persistence of a clear and significant wage differential between contingent and secure work in Italy that parallels and adds to the job insecurity dimension. As regard methods, we apply statistical matching, multivariate analyses and FE models. All our results confirm this specific outcome of the \"deregulation at the margins\" of the Italian labor market. Adapted from the source document.

Partial and targeted labor market deregulation as undergone in Italy during the last two decades has created a strong cohort cleavage on the labor market as regards the risks of a precarious work career. In explaining the logics underlying the different kinds of labor market deregulation, the literature stresses the alternative between labor market adjustment based on wage inequality and job insecurity. Flexible and unequal labor markets in the English-speaking countries are opposed to the continental-European ones, where wage differentiation is limited but deregulation has been «at the margins». Notwithstanding the theoretical debate, there is still relatively little empirical evidence regarding the level of inequality in wages between «contingent» and «secure» work positions, especially in Italy, although, given the ongoing debate, one would expect a trade-off between job security and wage level to be operating. We use the Italian component of the 1995-2001 ECHP panel waves, the SHIW panels 2004-2006, 2006-2008 to provide an empirical based analysis of the persistence of a clear and significant wage differential between contingent and secure work in Italy that parallels and adds to the job insecurity dimension. As regard methods, we apply statistical matching, multivariate analyses and FE models. All our results confirm this specific outcome of the «deregulation at the margins» of the Italian labor market.

Child poverty and intergenerational transmission of social risks are features of the increase of social inequality occurred in the last two decades. In this paper, we study how in a sub-protective welfare model, as the Italian one, the households may enter poverty in concomitance with a child birth. Italian welfare state plays a reduced role in protecting families and their children against poverty, with limited money transfers and scarce childcare services. Furthermore, the process of labour market flexibilization 'at the margins' produced a strong labour market segmentation, which hits again young people and young, newly formed families. In this regard, we ask firstly whether a child birth increase the probabilities of entering poverty; secondly, if the risk of being poor in concomitance of the birth of a child is higher among temporary workers' households. Using longitudinal IT-Silc data (2004-2007) and applying Random Effects logit models and statistical matching, we show that families with new-born babies face higher poverty risks (threshold at 60% of median income) than their counterpart, with possibly negative consequences on future children's life chances. Our empirical evidence shows that in Italy labour marker precariousness and economic poverty represent quite often two sides of the same coin: the Italian welfare state provides young households with no sufficient resources to cope with the child birth event, thus failing to prevent the risk of entering poverty with the parallel deepening in intergenerational transmission of social and economic risks. Adapted from the source document.

Child poverty and intergenerational transmission of social risks are features of the increase of social inequality occurred in the last two decades. In this paper, we study how in a sub-protective welfare model, as the Italian one, the households may enter poverty in concomitance with a child birth. Italian welfare state plays a reduced role in protecting families and their children against poverty, with limited money transfers and scarce childcare services. Furthermore, the process of labour market flexibilization «at the margins» produced a strong labour market segmentation, which hits again young people and young, newly formed families. In this regard, we ask firstly whether a child birth increase the probabilities of entering poverty; secondly, if the risk of being poor in concomitance of the birth of a child is higher among temporary workers' households. Using longitudinal IT-Silc data (2004-2007) and applying Random Effects logit models and statistical matching, we show that families with new-born babies face higher poverty risks (threshold at 60% of median income) than their counterpart, with possibly negative consequences on future children's life chances. Our empirical evidence shows that in Italy labour marker precariousness and economic poverty represent quite often two sides of the same coin: the Italian welfare state provides young households with no sufficient resources to cope with the child birth event, thus failing to prevent the risk of entering poverty with the parallel deepening in intergenerational transmission of social and economic risks.