Entry career patterns in Italy: a longitudinal analysis

Job (dis)continuity and careers configuration are crucial for understandingnew and old inequalities on the labour market. The impact of deregulation andflexibilization processes on careers is still unclear. In order to detect vulnerable profilesof workers, it would be useful to analyse the pathways followed by individuals ratherthan single transitions between different contractual arrangements. The paper focuseson the first eight years of labour market participation. A comparison among fourItalian workers' cohorts is carried out by using the AD-SILC panel, which matchesinformation from the National Social Security's registers (INPS) and the Italian surveydata from the 2005 wave of EU-SILC (European Union Statistics on Income andLiving Conditions). First we describe how the features of labour market participationevolve across the cohorts. Second, we highlight the individual characteristicsassociated with the different career profiles, focussing on the role played by parentalbackground. Finally, we inquire whether different types of trajectories are associatedwith wage penalties and whether a reproduction of wage inequality through the influenceof parental background emerges. The results of the comparison between entry trajectories give support to the hypothesis concerning the high complexity of Italianworkers' careers even for the older cohorts. A certain stability of career profiles existsacross cohorts, apart from a reduction of the shares of those leaving the (regular)labour force. This is probably connected to cohort effects and to the increasingfemale participation to the labour market. Moreover, specific careers and trajectoriesoutcomes are strictly associated with individuals' socioeconomic characteristics: evenafter controlling for the educational level, the entry pathway is connected to thefamily background. In addition, the early career pattern results in a considerablewage differential (through the different accumulated seniority) for those workers whoachieve dependent employment after eight years of labour market participation, henceengendering a permanent penalty for those having followed less stable careers. Finally,the analysis confirms that in Italy coming from a disadvantaged family backgroundnegatively affects earnings, even when main outcomes (e.g. education, delay in education,seniority, occupation and sector) are controlled for.