Temporary Contracts and Young Workers’ Job Satisfaction in Italy

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 7716 November 2013 ABSTRACT Temporary Contracts and Young Workers' Job Satisfaction in ItalyThe Italian process of flexibilization of the labour market has created a dual market populated by protected permanent employees and unprotected temporary workers. The latter comprises not only temporary employment relationships but also autonomous collaborations used by firms as low-cost de facto temporary employment relationships. Little is known about the quality of these temporary jobs, particularly widespread among young workers. We estimate a regression model of perceived overall job satisfaction of young workers, based on the ISFOL-PLUS 2006-2008-2010 panel. We control for the various temporary contracts and for perceived satisfactions in nine aspects of the job. We find that lack of job stability is the most serious cause of lower satisfaction for both temporary employees and autonomous collaborators. But while temporary employees compensate concerns of job stability with other job aspects, attaining satisfaction levels comparable to those of permanent employees, autonomous collaborators do not and are thus significantly the least satisfied.JEL Classification: J28, J81

The Flexibility of Temporary Employment in Europe

“…In view of the above, in the last decades, the increase of temporary work has been a response to high unemployment in many countries, however the legal framework differs from country to country [23]- [25]. Kovacs [19]argued that there was empirical evidence that flexible work has been increasing all over Europe, despite the subsistence of differences among countries.…”

Fixed term contracts and employers' human capital: The role of educational spillovers

“…Well‐managed firms, in turn, tend to have better policies for workforce along several dimensions as job flexibility and self‐assessed employee satisfaction (Bloom et al ; Bloom and Van Reenen ). On the contrary, working under fixed term contracts lowers job satisfaction (Origo and Pagani ; Bruno et al ) and impairs productive efforts and workers' initiative at the workplace (Belot et al ).…”

Precariousness, youth and political participation: the emergence of a new political cleavage

“…The labour market of temporary jobs in Italy is two-tiered, with a primary segment offering well-paid job positions and a secondary segment offering short-term, low-paid work with no career and stabilization prospects. Therefore, temporary positions may be used as probationary periods serving as 'stepping stones' towards more rewarding positions (Scherer 2001(Scherer , 2004, while otherssuch as seasonal or casual jobsare de facto potential traps that promise dead-end precarious careers (Bruno et al 2014;Picchio 2012;Pavlopoulos 2013). Moreover, a strong internal divide exists between precariously employed young people holding a university degree and those who do not (Barbieri 2011;Lodovici and Semenza 2012).…”