This chapter introduces the essays in the volume starting with analysing the situation of the Italian labour market in terms of the diffusion of non standard work. Together with an analysis of its diffusion the essay discusses the characteristics of workers who are more likely to be in non...

This chapter deals with the issue of measuring quality of work according to the subjective perception that each single worker has of it. The essay starts out from the definition put forward by Gallino (1993), who identifies four dimensions of the quality of labour (ergonomic, of complexity, of...

This essay disentangles the inequalities in the take-up of non-standard work by gender as well as the gender differences in its determinants, and the factors conducive to the ‘choice’ of non-standard employment. With reference to part-time employment the estimates confirm the high weight of...

This chapter assesses whether temporary jobs have been springboards to regular employment or to dead-end positions in Italy, using for the purpose the 2000, 2002, and 2004 waves of the Survey of Italian Households' Income and Wealth. The estimation of a bivariate dynamic unobserved effects...

This paper deals with the counting of temporary employment in Italy, the determinants of being a temp and the ‘quality’ of temporary employment with regards to the 2004-2006 period by using Labour Force Survey data. Although limited, this period is also important because of the further steps...

This chapter focus is on the evaluation of part-time workers’ well-being through analysis of part-time jobs in the social services sector. The main factors influencing part-time workers’ satisfactions and part-timers' perceptions about their jobs, internal fairness, and the quality of the...

In the past decade, several countries, notably France, Spain and Germany, have experienced a joint increase in female participation and fertility, mainly because of national policies aimed at balancing work and family life. In Italy, by contrast, fertility has remained relatively stable (after a...

This chapter deals with the empirical testing of the potential trade-off between flexibility and productivity growth by using firm-level data. The model of reference relies on various works by Sylos-Labini, The model is estimated on data from the 9th “Indagine sulle imprese manifatturiere”,...

Microlevel individual data for Italy from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Rilevazione Trimestrale delle Forze di Lavoro) are used to undertake a microeconometric analysis of the factors affecting women’s labour force participation. The main research questions are: 1) does the availability...

This chapter discusses the relation between flexibility and precariousness by using a longitudinal panel constructed from the administrative records of the Italian Social Security System (Inps) and compiled at the Department of Economics, Venice University. The data set concerns the entire...