Lara Maestripieri

Does Social Innovation Reduce the Economic Marginalization of Women? Insights from the Case of Italian Solidarity Purchasing Groups

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relationship between gender and social innovation to highlight the possible positive effects of womens participation in social innovation in terms of protection from economic marginalization. It focuses on Italian solidarity purchasing groups as a case of social innovation in the domain of food and agriculture. The analysis is based on logistic regression using primary data collected in 2016 for the EU funded project CrESSI. The results show that participation in social innovation does protect households from worsening economic conditions. However, it was not empirically proven that there is a significant difference between men and women in the benefit enjoyed from the participation in solidarity purchasing groups.

Women at risk: the impact of labour-market participation, education and household structure on the economic vulnerability of women through Europe

ABSTRACT While increasing female employment has contributed to reducing gender inequality, it has also exposed women to higher economic insecurity. The contribution of this paper is to understand the social conditions that might expose women to economic insecurity in different European cities. Specific aspects have been considered: (a) reduced (part time) work, (b) hampered labour-market participation (unemployment, involuntary inactivity due to care tasks), (c) different household structures (single/couple; with/without young children) or (d) educational level of both partners in the household. Data are based on a survey carried out in 2012 in seven European cities, representative of the different welfare/gender regimes in Europe. The results show that the most important divide is between women cohabiting/not cohabiting with a partner. Splitting the analysis on these two groups of women, differentiated configurations of conditions exposing women to economic insecurity have emerged in different welfare/care regimes. While Nordic, Central-eastern and Anglo-Saxon cities substantiate an individualised model of exposure to economic insecurity mostly driven by women’s participation in the labour market, in Continental and Mediterranean cities insecurity mainly depends on the educational levels (mainly of the partner in the case of coupled women) and the organisation of the household (presence of children).

Urban Economic Specialization and Women’s Integration into the Labour Market in 11 European Cities

This chapter identifies some urban economy patterns in Europe, highlighting the effects of local production systems on the women’s integration into the labour market and, conversely, the impact of the participation of women on the competitiveness of the local economy. In particular the aim is to focus on how the economic specialization of a city affects both the quantity and the quality of jobs available to women. This is an innovative comparative analysis for Europe at the urban level. The chapter first investigates how some features of urban economic specialization (for example, manufacturing, services, agriculture and construction) advantage or disadvantage women’s employment. The second question is related to the process of horizontal segregation of women in the labour market. Finally, the chapter focuses on the effects of the current economic crisis on women’s employment and some future perspectives.

Young People Experiencing Work Precariousness: Risks and Opportunities

In recent decades most European countries have promoted labor market deregulation, under the assumption that rigid protection was the main reason for the persistence of unemployment and long-term unemployment. In some countries these reforms have simply been juxtaposed with existing regulation, de facto increasing the fracture between the core workforce (namely adult male workers, relatively permanently hired) and a growing share of workers exposed to unstable labor market participation, young people, women, and workers with a minority background in particular. One of the most relevant consequences of such transformation is a reduction of boundaries between employment and unemployment, and the rise of discontinuity, thus reconfiguring the ‘old’ risk of being totally excluded from the labor market into the ‘new’ risk of being temporarily, unstably, and therefore loosely, integrated, associated with the post industrial societies (Ranci 2010).

Small Is Beautiful? Emerging Organizational Strategies among Italian Professionals: Small Is Beautiful?

The traditional debate about professional groups has mainly focused on conflicts between professions and organizations, reinforcing dualisms and dichotomies. Few scholars have investigated the extent to which professionalism and organizations are intertwined while focusing on the case of professionals integrated into large organizations, and even less attention has been paid to emerging forms of organization among self-employed professionals. Taking as an example organizational trends among architects (liberal professionals) and management consultants (emerging professionals) in Italy, this article investigates how small, flexible, and (often) interprofessional organizations promoted by self-employed professionals are increasingly instrumental in overcoming market pressures and responding to emerging social needs in times of crisis and austerity.

No country for graduates. Occupational over-education among Italian workers

This article focuses upon the phenomenon of over-education in Italy, proposing an original measure which is based on cross-dataset comparison between the actual occupation and the educational level of workers for each ISCO 4 digit class. The level of analytical detail and the crossed use of a self-declared and a statistical method for defining over-education allow achieving an accurate and punctual measure of over-education of labour force. By over-education we mean here the proportion of workers employed in occupational positions in which their educational level is higher than requested. Building on this measure, the article identifies the main factors associated with over-education, considering aspects connected with labour supply (i.e. characteristics of workers), labour demand (i.e. economic sector or size of firms), and the contract arrangement. The descriptive analysis shows that over-education is concentrated especially among young workers, carrying the possible risk of impeding the human capital exploitation achieved during the education. However, a logistic regression model shows that the relation between age and over-education - which is still significant - is far frombeing linear, while further factors are associated to the phenomenon. In particular, factors related to labour demands expose sensibly to the risk of over-education: Italian productive structure is not specifically oriented towards knowledge-intensive economical activities, thus not offering suitable preconditions for public or private investments in human capital. Secondly, the type of labour contract contributes to increase the risk of over-education, above all for temporary and part-time contracts (characterised by a weaker subordination position). In sum, the analysis suggests the existence of a widespread and complex mismatch between education and labour market in Italy.