Michele La Rosa

Weak groups on the labour market

At present, social sciences seem to be going through some crucial turning points which are extensively questioning the analytical potentialities of their own interpretative paradigms. The traditional conceptual ‘instruments’, in fact, appear to be less and less capable of coping with the need to find definite answers to the questions posed by a rapidly changing society. An issue which is, under these terms, becoming more and more relevant, in particular for all those disciplines which have labour as their main subject of research, concerns the development of new and never before seen groups of ‘weak’ subjects. What seems to emerge strongly, in fact, is a growing circular correlation between social weakness and the position held by a subject in the labour market. Therefore, the following chapter is an attempt — without any claim to be complete — towards presenting some reflections concerning this issue on a European level.

The quality of work and the European economic crisis – the theme and the time: an introduction

The theme of the quality of work and working life has gone through ups and downs, recurrent references, at times only opportunistic, in the sociological literature. Our intention here is certainly not to go once again over the stages, both theoretical and empirical, at the international level, but above all european and italian, of this process.

Empirical analysis of the risk of social exclusion of long-term unemployed young people in Italy

The general state of youth unemployment in Italy may be summarised as follows2: Table I-1 Youth unemployment figures in Italy 1985 1992 1995 1996 1997 youth unemployment rate (15–29) 23.9 21.0 25.0 25.7 26.1* youth unemployment/ total unemployed 76.6 69.1 61.3 60.7 60.8 long-term youth unemployment/youth unemployment 69.3 56.8 64.2 65.7 67.0 Source: Eurostat: in the 1985 figures for unemployment rates, subjects 14 years old and over were still included. *Istat.

Youth Unemployment and Health in Italy

The present report2 will give an overview of the issue of unemployment and specifically youth unemployment in Italy, followed by an analysis of the available research on the correlation between youth unemployment and health. It is necessary to bear in mind that until now the latter aspect has not received much attention both on a theoretical and empirical level. Therefore, the analysis will also incorporate additional useful data linked only indirectly with the subject of this report in order to understand how the condition of exclusion from work can affect the state of health of young persons in Italy.

Youth Unemployment and Social Exclusion in Italy

In order to correctly analyse the different aspects that characterise unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular, we need to start from the criteria which underlie the definition of unemployment according to the official survey criteria. From the 1950s onwards, the Central Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) has conducted what can be defined as the primary source of statistical data on employment and unemployment in Italy, namely the Rilevazione trimestrale delle forze di lavoro (Quarterly Survey of the Labour Force). This sample survey is subdivided into two parts2: 1,318 city councils (a stratified sample based on the principle of demographic width), and families (in 1997 around 70,000 families; that is, almost 200,000 persons). Among the several labour market indicators that exist, those of most interest from the point of view of this report are the following: a) unemployed persons (i.e., persons who have lost their job), persons seeking their first job, and other persons seeking a job; b) unemployed persons aged 15 years3 or older who lost a previous subordinate job due to dismissal, end of a temporary job, or resignation; they had not worked in the reference week and claimed that 1) they were looking for subordinate work and were immediately available for work, or that 2) after the work survey they were going to start a subordinate job which they had already found, or that 3) after the work survey they were going to start a new activity and had already procured all the necessary means to carry out this activity; c) persons seeking their first job: people aged 15 years or over who had never worked, or who had been self-employed, or who had decided to stop working for a period of at least one year, finding themselves in one of the positions 1–3 listed under unemployed persons (Starting from 1992, in order to make surveys conform as much as possible to the Eurostat indicators, the definition “persons seeking their first job” was limited to all those who had actively looked for a job within the 30-day period prior to the interview; d) other persons seeking a job: persons aged 15 years or over who declared themselves as not being part of the labour force (such as housewives, students and retired persons), but who were in fact seeking a job and were immediately available for work. This group also includes those who, even if they satisfied some of the previously described conditions for unemployed persons seeking a first job (see conditions outlined under group c), had not yet arranged all the things they needed to be able to look for a job, as well as those who declared themselves to be unemployed for reasons other than dismissal, end of a temporary job, or resignation.