Non-standard work, low-paid work and employment dynamics: evidence from an occupational perspective

This paper aims to analyze phenomena such as the diffusion of non-standard work and the incidence of low-paid work from a distinctive, and generally neglected angle: that of occupations. Much can be gained from a more fine-grained analysis of labour market dynamics that casts light on which occupations contributed to aggregated trends and how, and highlights different paths for different occupations, or groups thereof. This is what is done in this paper, using the Italian case to provide evidence for an exploratory – and, at this stage, mainly descriptive – study of trends observable in many advanced labour markets (the spread of non-standard work and of low-paid work), carried out within a perspective that focuses on occupations rather than on the whole labour market. After having depicted in the next section the main economic and employment trends over the past 20 years as well as the basic features of the regulatory framework of the Italian labour market, the second section carries out a detailed empirical analysis of the Italian labour market with an occupational perspective looking at the determinants of three outcome variables: non-standard work, part-time and low-pay work, and at the transitions in and out of those employment states. The third section focuses on a selection of specific occupations that are singled out and analysed with the intent to illustrate their distinctive features. The final section concludes.