Labour In Italy Research Articles

Equality in household labor allocation among married and cohabiting individuals in Italy: the role of unions history

This study focuses on the allocation of household labor in Italy, finely differentiating between various forms of married and unmarried cohabiting unions. Specifically, currently married and cohabiting individuals are differentiated on the basis of the type of their first union. We employ data on individuals’ partnership histories from the 2016 “Families and Social Subjects” survey, which allows us to consider the role of previous (marital or non-marital) unions and, for currently or previously married individuals, whether or not they cohabited before marriage. A composite index measuring gender equality in household labor allocation is constructed based on different domestic tasks, weighting each task according to how time consuming the associated activity is. Results highlight the importance of considering the first union to explain the division of household labor even within later relationships. In particular, for men, cohabitation does not, as one might expect, mean a more egalitarian division of labor, once selection factors are taken into account and independently from the type of previous relationships. However, considering activities by gender, some signals of a greater participation in female-typed tasks are observed for married and cohabitating men who experienced previous (premarital) cohabitations. For women, instead, cohabitation implies a more egalitarian way to share household labor, if it is a first union or in any situation for which it was the first approach to life as a couple. Cohabitation does not imply a more egalitarian division of labor for women if their first union was a marriage. These differences in household labor allocation for women mainly follow from those observed in female-typed tasks, whereas couple differences in male-typed activities are weaker.

Imaginary work: media representations of work and gender in Italy from the economic miracle to the present day

AbstractThe article explores media depictions of industrial labour in Italy, with a special focus on visual, film and television portrayals, spanning from the 1960s to the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Rather than delving into an analysis of labour processes, the primary objective of the article is to scrutinise the gendered representations of work and whether and how the representation of work, including all professions, has played a pivotal role in shaping narratives about Italian society and its inherent contradictions. In this context, the article also emphasises the significance of what remains unrepresented, highlighting the absence of work as equally consequential as its presence. Of particular importance within this exploration is the examination of women's work, a realm less frequently depicted than that of men. The article dedicates specific attention to unravelling the nuances of women's role in the workforce, recognising their portrayal as a key element in understanding broader narratives about Italian society and its complexities.

Feminization of labor in Italy

This paper examines the process of feminization of labor in Italy over the past thirty years, intended here as i) the quantitative increase of female participation in paid labor and ii) the spreading of those employment patterns and conditions that used to affect only peripheral workers. The complex interaction between wage and contract flexibility on one hand, and the shift towards a service-based economy and the growing presence of women in the workforce on the other, is analyzed through descriptive statistics. A critical assessment of some EU work-life balance policies is also provided.

Not Slaves Enough: On the Trivialization of Systemic Migrant Labor Exploitation in Tuscany, Italy

This article focuses on the exploitation of migrant labor in Tuscany, in relation to its neglect by anti-trafficking organizations. It contends that a conceptualization of human trafficking centered on coercion, violence, and forced movement of bodies focuses only on extra-ordinary cases, dismissing the wide-ranging exploitation of migrants currently taking place in Tuscany. It contends that the structural presence of exploitation within lawful frameworks renders exploitation itself invisible and it normalizes it. This study used the extended case methodology, linking the context of labor in Italy with the analysis of interviews with migrant workers and trade union and inspection officers.

A Historical Reconstruction of Capital and Labour in Italy, 1861-2013

In this paper we provide a detailed explanation of the methodology underlying the construction of a new labour and capital stock dataset for Italy since 1861. The existing seminal paper (Rossi, Sorgato and Toniolo 1993) only covered the period 1911-1990 for labour and 1890-1990 for capital; moreover, sectoral disaggregation was limited. The labour dataset presented here includes both headcount and full-time equivalent annual estimates and provides a ten-sector breakdown. Net capital stock annual estimates are instead disaggregated by asset type (transport equipment, machinery and equipment, and construction, in turn divided into residential and non-residential). We then analyse the key features of the structural change in the Italian economy over the more than 150 years since unification. This dataset, combined with the new historical national accounts time series published by the Bank of Italy, finally makes a sectoral analysis of Italy’s long-run development possible.

Caring for the elderly in the family or in the nation? Gender, women and migrant care labour in the Lega Nord

This article aims at gendering our understanding of populist radical right ideology, policy and activism in Italy. It does so by focusing on migrant care labour, which provides a strategic site for addressing the relationship between anti-immigration politics and the gendered and racialised division of work. Three arrangements and understandings of elderly care are analysed, whereby care work should be performed ‘in the family and in the nation’, ‘in the family/outside the nation’ and ‘in the nation/outside the family’. Party documents and interviews with women activists are used to show how the activists’ views and experiences partly diverge from the Lega Nord rhetoric and policy on immigration, gender and care work. The article locates populist radical right politics in the context of the international division of reproductive labour in Italy and suggests the relevance of analysing gender relations in populist radical right parties in connection with national care regimes.

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

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.

Industrial Districts and Migrant Labour in Italy

AbstractBoth the flexibility of labour and wider sociocultural issues have historically been identified as important dimensions of the economic success of Italy's industrial districts. Increasing numbers of labour migrants from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe are now working in industrial districts and living in local communities previously characterized as socially cohesive. Immigration status, Italian employment legislation and the micro‐level conditions prevailing in districts appear as key issues affecting employment relationships for labour migrants, and the social cohesiveness seen to contribute to the success of industrial districts is being undermined through the treatment of labour migrants as people outside the national Italian community in terms of rights and other markers of citizenship.

Diplomacy and Essential Workers: Official British Recruitment of Foreign Labor in Italy, 1945–1951

The recruitment of about seven thousand Italian migrant workers by the postwar British Labour government is an interesting study in the use of foreign labor recruitment as a diplomatic policy. Foreign labor recruitment has generally been regarded as primarily an economic policy, with political ramifications entering into the picture in the form of domestic issues around integration, racism, labor relations and so on. However, the various British schemes to recruit Italian migrant workers from 1945 to 1951, and the discussion around the movement of migrant workers in postwar Europe carried on in various inter-European bodies, illustrate that foreign labor recruitment can be a much more complex phenomenon.

Inside and outside Italian political culture: Immigrants and diasporic politics in Turin

Immigration has become a leading topic of Italian political discourse and culture over the past decade, but international migrants also play a crucial role in the transformation of political culture at the scale of everyday practices. In the northern Italian industrial city, Turin, migrants from various parts of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia bring into relief the deconstruction of postwar labor in Italy, and contribute widely to shifting political practices and identities. Contemporary migrants from diverse ethnic backgrounds are discriminated against in similar ways, and are in the historically peculiar position of building diasporic politics. In Turin, first generation migrants have helped lead newcomers toward active participation in local politics, from the shop floors to the labor unions, and to inter-ethnic and feminist associations.

The Dependent Tenant: Land Leasing and Labour in Italy and Greece

‘Farm’ sites of various kinds have been a striking feature of survey archaeology in most areas of Greece and Italy in recent years, and a number of such sites dating to the Roman period have been located. In many parts of Greece there seem to be particularly large numbers of later Roman sites, with fewer which can be firmly dated to the earlier imperial period, while in a few areas the Imperial Roman period is one of dense occupation. In Italy, too, there seems to be considerable regional variation in peak periods of rural settlement, so that in some areas numbers of small sites are greatest for the Republican period (second to first centuries B.C.), while in other areas there are many small sites of the first century a.d. or even later. The tendency of archaeologists working in both Greece and Italy, especially in the early years of the survey boom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was to categorize these smaller sites as peasant farms (generally assuming peasant free-holders), while larger, more opulent sites were classed as ‘villas’. This encouraged both archaeologists and historians to jump to the conclusion that the development of large estates attested in the literary record from the later second century B.C. onward had not effected the complete demise of small-scale, free subsistence farmers.

Dynamic Models for the Time Series of Industrial Conflict in the Labour Market

ABSTRACT: In the aim to investigate the behaviour of some indicators for the industrial conflict and to detect the relation between such variables and the cost of labour in Italy, this paper suggests the use of Box‐Jenkins’time series analysis. By fitting a different stochastic process for each series, it can be shown that every indicator gives a different kind of information about the industrial conflict, so that they can't be indifferently substituted by each other. In a second step, cross correlation function estimates between cost of labour and each indicator suggest the different role played by 'strike frequency’and strike duration during any contract renewal.

Capital and Labour in Italy

GOVERNMENTAL DECISIONS AND NON DECISIONS AFFECT THE LIVES AND interests of their citizens. More so with the expansion of governments’ role in modern industrialized societies. In every society, therefore, the citizens have found it necessary to organize groups according to different membership criteria in order to defend and/or advance existing interests or simply to articulate emerging interests in the face of governmental resistance and/or societal opposition. Organized groups may compete among themselves not only in order to catch government's attention and favours but also in order to obtain a more favourable distribution of societal resources from each other.

Il costo del lavoro in Italia e nei paesi della CEE. (Labour cost in Italy and the E.E.C. countries)

The European Community Statistical Institute (ECSI) began conducting annual surveys of labour costs in 14 industrial sectors of the Community countries in 1959. The present article illustrates the principal results of the fourth survey that relates to 1962 and is now in course of publication. The analysis is confined to data regarding to labour cost shown as borne by the enterprises, and does not take account of studies made by ECSI of workers’ incomes in various countries. In particular, the author considers the data on the cost of labour in Italy. The data is brought up to date for 1963 and 1964 to show the changes that have taken place in Italy’s position with respect to previous years. While in the surveys tom 1959 and 1960 Italy was shown to have the lowest labour cost among Common Market countries, it now comes in first in the classification and has in almost every case registered a labour cost very near to the highest figure. JEL: E24, J30