Matteo Jessoula

'Selective Flexicurity' in Segmented Labour Markets: The Case of Italian 'Mid-Siders'

The article is focused on the analysis of flexicurity arrangements in the Italian case with a twofold aim. The first aim is substantive: analysing and evaluating recent labour market reforms in Italy with particular reference to the possible emergence of a new flexicurity model. The second goal is to contribute to the debate on labour market development and flexicurity by enriching and refining the available analytical tools. More specifically, we argue that the traditional conceptual ‘lenses’ focusing on the ‘insiders’/‘outsiders’ divide are inadequate to grasp the ongoing changes in the Italian labour market. This leads us to identify a third category of workers, the ‘mid-siders’, who are increasingly relevant in the Italian case and may prove to be relevant in other labour markets too. Moreover, we introduce the concept of ‘selective flexicurity’, referring to the fact that in the Italian case flexibility and security measures have been applied differently across the various categories of workers.

Understanding convergence and divergence: old and new cleavages in the politics of minimum income schemes in Italy and Poland

Italy and Poland present similarly weak minimum income protection models, yet this results from two different policy trajectories in the last 15 years: both countries actually introduced a minimum income scheme (MIS) between the late 1990s (Italy) and the early 2000s (Poland), but later developments were characterized by policy reversal in the Italian case vis-à-vis institutionalization in Poland. The paper therefore addresses two intertwined puzzles. First, in the light of very different background conditions, which factors help understand the convergent process towards the introduction of MIS? Second, what explains remarkable divergence in the subsequent phase? Challenging previous claims about the limited scope of political competition dynamics in the field of social assistance, due to generally narrow constituencies and limited political mobilization, we contend that political competition dynamics are key factors in order to make sense of both convergent and divergent trajectories in the two diverse phases.

‘Eppur si muoveva…’ The Italian Trajectory of Recent Welfare Reforms: From ‘Rescued by Europe’ to Euro-scepticism

The Italian welfare state is generally classified as either an example of the continental or Bismarckian welfare regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990) or, adopting other conceptual lenses, a representative of the Southern European welfare state family (Ferrera, 1996). Since the “golden decades” of welfare state expansion (roughly 1950s–70s), the Italian welfare state configuration has been characterized by the predominance of the male breadwinner model, a deep gap between the “insiders” – mainly workers in core economic sectors and pensioners — and the “outsiders” — the unemployed, mostly women and young people — and by the crucial role of the family in providing informal social protection for its members (Saraceno, 1994). However, during the 1990s and early 2000s the Italian welfare state underwent an unprecedented process of reform. The interventions adopted in the fields of employment policy, pension policy and the social assistance sector were crucial components in this process aimed at “modernizing”— or “recalibrating” a la Ferrera and Hemerijck (2003) — the Italian welfare state.

Labour Market Flexibility and Pension Reforms: What Prospects for Security in Old Age?

Rarely has the incorporation of two words into an analytical as well as a political concept been as successful as the term flexicurity. The word developed as the catchword for an array of policies to increase labour market flexibility by imposing more risks on workers for the sake of expanded opportunities, while providing (social) security through a variety of instruments: robust income protection for the jobless; early activation of the unemployed; active labour market policies; and further measures that restore or maintain employability and prevent people from being trapped in poverty, low-wage jobs or other undesirable situations.1 This is why flexicurity generally has a positive connotation in the public debate, in contrast to the negative associations of stagflation, another neologism which emerged during the 1970s.

Reconfiguring Italian Pensions: From Policy Stalemate to Comprehensive Reforms

This book comprehensively documents developments in pension policy in eleven advanced industrial countries in Western Europe, East Asia and North America. In order to explore what population ageing means for the sustainability of pension systems, the authors present a detailed review of pension policy making over the past two decades and provide up-to-date analysis of current pension legislation. They examine the factors that can facilitate or impede the adaptation of pension systems and the features that shape and determine reforms. They also highlight the fact that although the path of reform taken by each country is somewhat different, the processes at work are often very similar.

Flexible Today, Secure Tomorrow?

A quarter of a century ago, in his analysis of the ‘growth to limits’ of Western welfare states, Peter Flora (1986) identified three major challenges to existing social protection systems: (a) population ageing and the need to redraw the social contract across generations; (b) changes in the gender division of work that required a new contract between the genders; and (c) a shift in values that called for a new relationship between the State and citizens, with a stronger role for other institutions, primarily the market. These challenges were the consequence of several (more or less) slow-moving macro-transformations — such as slower economic growth, the emergence of a post-industrial economy, demographic shifts, female mobilization and increased education — as well as decisions by policy makers that led to an extraordinary expansion of the public sector and, finally, increased economic internationalization. All this required ‘long and complex processes of institutional adaptation’ (Flora, 1986, XXVI) in order to prevent system and social disintegration. In other words, in order to preserve the capacity of welfare states to ensure socio-economic security as well as equality, the institutional maladjustment of social security schemes to changed circumstances was to be tackled by a comprehensive restructuring of welfare arrangements.

Poverty and social inclusion as emerging policy arenas in the EU

Discovering methods to combat poverty and social exclusion has now become a major political challenge in Europe. This book offers an original and timely analysis of how actors at the European, national and subnational levels meet this challenge. Combining perspectives on multilevel and network coordination, the editors discuss to what extent actors join forces in these efforts and identify the factors limiting the coordination achieved in practice. The book builds on a European study comparing Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK.

Pension multi-pillarisation in Italy: actors, ‘institutional gates’ and the ‘new politics’ of funded pensions:

A latecomer to supplementary funded pension provision, Italy’s multi-pillarisation plan was launched in the 1990s under extremely adverse conditions. Supplementary schemes were expected to achieve universal coverage relying primarily on second pillar occupational pension funds. Twenty-five years after its launch, the comprehensive plan can hardly be called successful with respect to both coverage and the relative importance of second and third pillar institutions. Extreme variation in coverage rates between occupational categories and across economic sectors suggests, however, that these developments cannot be merely interpreted as a consequence of institutional resilience and path-dependent dynamics. The article applies an ‘actor-centred institutionalist’ framework to respond to three main questions. What explains the still limited coverage of supplementary pillars in Italy? What factors account for the prominent role played by third pillar pension schemes in contrast to policy-makers’ original intentions? Which factors allow us to understand the significant variation in coverage across both occupational categories and economic sectors?

A Risky Combination in Italy: ‘Selective Flexibility’ and Defined Contributions Pensions

In October 2010, the pension debate in Italy suddenly took on a new urgency when the president of INPS — the National Social Insurance Institute — stated that ‘if projections of future pensions levels for some categories of atypical workers were revealed, there would be risk of social revolt’ (Corriere della Sera, 2010). This is striking in the light of comparative data showing that public pension levels are currently higher in Italy than in most other European countries.1 Also, it suggests that the interaction of pension and labour market rules is a hot issue in the Italian public debate, particularly concerning security in old age in the coming decades for atypical workers.

The right(s) and minimum income in hard times: Southern and Eastern Europe compared

ABSTRACT The paper addresses a topic still largely under-researched in comparative welfare state literature: the role of right parties in the reform of last resort safety nets. More precisely, the study investigates minimum income schemes’ reforms promoted during the Great Recession (2008–2013) by centre-right governments in three countries belonging to the European periphery: Italy, Portugal and Latvia. Despite common political orientation and increased problem pressure, these countries have gone through distinct reform trajectories in their social safety nets that may be labelled expansion (Latvia), retrenchment (Portugal), and continuity (Italy). Against this backdrop, the paper suggests that right parties display substantially different positions and pursue different reform strategies in anti-poverty policies. These differences can be explained by the diverse types of right parties and varying competition and coalition dynamics in the three countries.