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This paper contributes to the debate on early-career precariousness and inequalities against the backdrop of labour market deregulation. The analyses focus on a cohort of young Italian workers who entered the labour market after the deregulatory reforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Instead of looking at the timing of isolated transitions between employment states, 7-year-long trajectories are considered to identify differences by gender and education in the probability of experiencing more stable and protected early-careers. Italy is a particularly interesting country-case because of its high youth unemployment rates and difficult school-to-work transitions into the protected labour market segment. The analyses draw on AD-SILC, a unique data source that combines administrative records of complete employment histories and survey data and offers an unprecedented, highly detailed distinction between a wide range of non-standard employment relationships. Applying sequence analysis, eight early-career types characterized by different degrees of employment continuity and stability are identified. Multivariate logistic regression estimates show that women - especially if lower-educated - are more likely than men to experience pathways characterized by instability and weak (or absent) employment and social security protection, that ultimately lead to more precarious early careers.

La letteratura sulla povertà da lavoro si è finora concentrata sullo studio dei redditi familiari. Per restituire una immagine multidimensionale del disagio economico e della vulnerabilità delle famiglie di lavoratori, questo contributo considera i trend nell'ammontare e nella composizione della ricchezza tra famiglie povere e non povere tra il 1991 e il 2016 in Italia. Inoltre, proponendo una analisi che incrocia la povertà da lavoro con i livelli di ricchezza, esploriamo le dinamiche nel tempo della prevalenza di povertà da lavoro e livelli di ricchezza per classi d'età. I risultati mostrano che le famiglie di lavoratori poveri sono anche con più probabilità meno ricche. Il gap è più marcato per attività reali e ricchezza negativa. La distanza tra le famiglie povere su quasi tutti gli indicatori è cresciuta fino al 2006 e vede una flessione a partire dal 2012. Questo andamento è dovuto principalmente all'aumentare e poi al diminuire della ricchezza delle famiglie non povere. Mostriamo infine che l'associazione tra povertà da lavoro e bassi livelli di ricchezza interessa soprattutto nuclei più giovani.

At a time of growing expectations about educational attainment, young people who did not complete upper-secondary schooling can easily be 'left behind' to face risks of social exclusion. Being able to make a rapid and successful transition into a first significant job is crucial for long-term labor-market attachment. We approach the question of continuity or change in school-to-work transitions by comparing the experiences of four birth cohorts of early school leavers in Italy, where they still constitute a sizeable group as of today. Italy makes for an interesting case study due to the length of school-to-work transitions and the extent of gender differences in this phase. In an era of educational expansion and increased female activation, studying changes in low-educated women's labor-market access brings into focus the question of who is really left behind. Using data from the 2009 'Multi-purpose Survey on Household and Social Subjects,' we use discrete time logistic regression models to estimate the probability of transitioning to the first significant job for early school leavers born between 1954 and 1993. We find that gender differences are strikingly persistent across birth cohorts, even after controlling for sociodemographic variables as well as for time-varying fertility and partnership histories.

Labour-market deregulation may have generated more unstable and complex employment life courses. As exposure to highly volatile early-career trajectories has long-lasting consequences for the working lives of individuals, it is especially important to consider how these processes have affected younger workers in countries like Italy. Here, deregulation 'at the margins' of the labour market has been characterized by a strong age divide and has exacerbated the separation between insiders and outsiders. We contrast the "individualization of risk" perspective with the "persistent inequality" hypothesis by looking at differentials by gender and socio-economic status in the degree of early-career complexity of workers who entered the labour market before and after deregulation. The use of an innovative longitudinal dataset (AD-SILC) which combines administrative records on employment episodes and survey data on individuals' socio-economic characteristics allows this study to apply advanced methods in sequence analysis to calculate the complexity of seven-year-long early career trajectories. Complexity is measured by considering the number of transitions between employment states and the length of each episode. We find that early-career complexity increased across cohorts, especially for those more exposed to deregulation. Against the scenario of a generalized increase in labour market dualization, this non-linear dynamic especially affected medium and low-educated individuals and was particularly pronounced for women. Although our analytical strategy does not allow for a causal interpretation of mechanisms engendering the observed trends, this empirical evidence is highly relevant for the implication of changes in early career patterns across cohorts for stratification research.

According to the individualization of the life–course hypothesis, a largest set of institutionalized options available should facilitate individuals in realizing their preferences for the timing of life–course transitions. This study contributes to the literature by considering differences by gender and education (and their interaction) in the ability to fulfil preferences for early retirement across welfare states. We use longitudinal data from the SHARE survey as it includes information on preferences for early retirement expressed before actual retirement: we therefore avoid biases driven by the assessment of preferences for the timing of retirement after it occurred. We estimate discrete time regression models and find that positive preferences for early retirement are associated with an actual anticipation of retirement with respect to the statutory age. Although the size of the effect is small, it remains statistically significant even after models are adjusted for a number of potential confounding factors. However, no differences by gender and education (or their interaction) exist in the strength of the correspondence between preferences and behaviour. Finally, these results do not vary across welfare regimes. This evidence suggests that the timing of the transition to retirement is only marginally shaped by preferences and it is still strongly institutionalized, being a by-product of "agency-within-structure" mechanisms rather than an individualized process.

The article presents an analysis of the association between labor market characteristics related to female employment and the prevalence of in-work poverty. We compare two relative measures of in-work poverty: The individual definition refers to workers whose salary is below 60% of the median, while the household-level definition refers to individuals whose household income is below 60% of the median. Microdata from the 2014 EU-SILC survey and macrodata on involuntary part-time employment and female labor market participation are used to perform a multilevel analysis on 31 European countries. The results show a positive relationship between involuntary part-time work and in-work poverty according to the household definition. Female labor market participation is positively associated with the individual definition and negatively with the household one. However, after controlling for the level of within-country income inequality, only the effect of the female employment rate remains positive and significant for the individual in-work. These results shed light on the multifaceted role of labor market characteristics related to female employment and their implications for policy. We argue that the promotion of female participation should be combined with explicit measures to reduce the disadvantageous position of women in the labor market.

The article investigates the employment conditions of young early school leavers in Italy in the aftermath of the economic crisis, a period which was marked by a process of occupational downgrading. The empirical analyses rely on the 2005 and 2014 waves of the ISFOL-PLUS survey and show that the employment opportunities of youth who dropped out of school have substantially deteriorated over time, both in absolute terms and compared to those who attained an upper-secondary level certificate. The article discusses possible determinants of this negative trend: on the one hand, the increased negative selection of the group of early school leavers; on the other hand, the process of "crowding out" of workers with intermediate qualification levels from well-matching jobs. The results also show considerable gender differences and in particular the existence of a multiplicative disadvantage for female early school leavers, especially in Southern Italy.

This chapter proposes a novel sequential mixed-method design that brings together the strengths of sequence analysis (SA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Both methods rely on an epistemological framework that combines analytical and holistic elements: they share the notion of analytically approaching social phenomena without disregarding their complexity. We apply SA as a first step to analyze the unfolding of phenomena over time. Specifically, through discrepancy analysis of state sequences, one can identify the time points when trajectories (start to) diverge from each other. In a second, explanatory step, QCA is applied to investigate whether, at such crucial time points, some particular configurations of factors are logically sufficient for the occurrence of a given state (or outcome). We provide an illustrative application to women's employment trajectories in divided Germany by using data from the Adults Cohort of the German National Educational Panel (NEPS). By preserving the analytical and holistic perspective on trajectories, our proposed design highlights the dynamic of socio-demographic factors sufficient for women to be in employment or education at critical turning points over the life course. This design takes on the challenge, summarized in Abbott's call for a 'processual sociology', to investigate both the dynamics of social phenomena as lineages of successive events and the complexity of contextual characteristics of 'present' moments. We conclude with an overview of research fields where our framework holds the promise of being applied fruitfully, namely life-course research, social stratification studies, policy evaluation, and comparative politics.

Compared to girls, boys are more at risk of early school leaving. However, it is unclear whether gender differences are driven by push factors, which alienate students from the school system, or pull factors, which attract them out of it. This paper examines gender differences in early school leaving, assessing the role of previous scholastic performance, parental education, and differential employment opportunities. By analyzing two nationally representative datasets, we focus on Italy, a country with high rates of early school leaving and pronounced gender inequalities in the labor market. Our results show that gender effects are partially mediated by scholastic performance, a crucial push factor, and are stronger among low-achieving students, pointing to a higher resilience of girls to academic failure; parental education is highly protective, especially for boys. Yet, boys' higher propensity to drop out is also, at least partly, explained by better employment opportunities in the formal and informal labor market.