Proteggere Zeus da Chrónos: il futuro del lavoro nell’Italia contemporanea

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the economic development in the past three decades is the decline in the share of national income that accrues to labour in all advanced economies (China included), but especially in Europe and Japan. This evolution has been most marked in Italy, possibly worsened by a stagnation of real wages and a progressive reduction of total factor and worker productivity, as compared with EU countries. In the last years productivity gains in Italy were indeed negative. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the main sources of variation of these phenomena, with a focus on Italy.The most important causes of the reduction of labour income share are the information and communications technology (ICT), the globalisation processes (labour globalisation, trade, offshoring and immigration), and labour policies brought about by national governments. An IMF study (2007) estimated that the causal role of ICT on the reduction of labour share in advanced countries was the most important, followed by globalisation and labour national policies. The negative impact of government policies on labour share was evident in many European continental countries, but not in Anglo-Saxon ones. Using published and unpublished data from this study some inter-countries and inter-sectorial differences are assessed and some features of the Italian situation specified.Labour in Italy, especially wage labour, was and is burdened by some long lasting heritages: persisting deficits of the pension system, dating from the 1960s onwards (annually some 4% of GNP); an historical tradition of low adult literacy and numeracy (recently reported by Ials studies); a barely effective and efficient secondary school, unable to modify that historical tradition (Oecd and Pisa studies).For many reasons, Italian governments were and are unable to effectively answer these problems. First, for their institutional weakness; second, because of the power of distributional coalitions (unions, professional lobbies), able to influence the legislative process and to assure peculiar benefits and privileges to their members; third for the lack of long term policies. The aggregate results of these processes not only are a deeper decline of the income labour share, as compared with other advanced countries, but also a progressive deterioration of associated life in many Italian regions.The future of labour in Italy is finally undermined by a progressive intergenerational iniquity, also shared — to tell the truth — by other European countries. The percentage of poor is now greater in younger age cohorts (0-18) as in the oldest ones (65 +). This result was fed by a series of government decisions and laws. Recently, the reduction of the pension age underwritten by Italian government and the unions in July 2007. In the next decades this process could damage the formation of the human capital and therefore the future of work in Italy. As in the old Greek myth of Zeus and Krónos, younger generations should be supported and promoted, while the appetites of older ones limited and regulated – at least by a far-sighted political leadership. Some proposals designed to attain this objective are discussed.