Book presentation by EXCEPT team of Turin University at local Readers Club
On 14th of March the book “Youth without future? Job insecurity and autonomy in modern Italy” was presented at “Circolo dei Lettori” (Readers Club) in Turin.
The event was moderated by Sonia Bertolini. Letizia Mencarini (Bocconi University) demographist, and the authors, Magda Bolzoni, Chiara Ghlislieri, Valentina Goglio, Manuela Olagnero, Simone Martino, Antonella Meo, Valentina Moiso, Roberta Ricucci, Rosy Musumeci, Loredana Sciolla, Paola Torrioni (University of Turin) took part to the discussion. The actress Silvia Genta read citations from the interviews with youth.
Job insecurity is one of the most relevant issues in working careers of young people. In their book, authors discuss the effects of uncertainty on the transition to adulthood in Italy in comparison with other European countries. They compare the Italian and international literature and data, mixing qualitative and quantitative methods, in the field of labor market transformations and transition to adulthood, in particular leaving the parental home.
The authors see that in the last twenty years, the meaning of the steps towards adulthood has increasingly changed: economic and psychological autonomy don’t go together with housing autonomy and are reached in different temporal combination. They find that the difficulties in entering the labor market are different for each social group: it is, indeed, institutionally mediated (labor market policy, educational system, welfare state, birth family position). The perception of being autonomous or not has a big influence on the self-satisfaction, predisposition to responsibility and psychological autonomy of youth. National policies to support autonomy have to deal with labor market ingress, housing support and with enhancing their will to be autonomous, satisfied and productive.
