Flexibility Divide an Empirical Approch to Labour Market Inequality

Patrizio Di Nicola [BIO] and Isabella Mingo [BIO] (University of Rome "La Sapienza")

Email: patrizio.dinicola@uniroma1.it and isabella.mingo@uniroma1.it

 

ABSTRACT:

Labour market Flexibility is one of the distinctive elements of post industrial economies, in contrast with the principles which characterize the Taylor system of work organization and mass production.

A double point of view on flexibility has clearly emerged. Some only see its disadvantages, its negative characteristics and effects, considering it a sort of social plague; others prefer rather to emphasize its embedded opportunities, regarding it as a means of social promotion. And then there are those who even compare flexibility with cholesterol: it exists, but it can be good or bad. In our paper we’ll address the threshold beyond which flexibility becomes dangerous, changing into job insecurity. Studying a universe of over 1,5 millions Italians holder of flexible working arrangements, we’ll demonstrate that gender inequalities, low pay and youth age, can easily create a flexibility divide between employees who enjoy the best of flexibility and others who suffer the worst.