Labor market "flexibilisation" has been proposed as a response to economic crisis and as a requirement for economic and occupational growth. Many European countries opted for a specific model: the "partial and targeted" labour market deregulation, increasing so-called "non-standard" employment relations while leaving the regulation of already existing employment relations largely unchanged. Italy is an example for this strategy of "deregulation at the margins". In this paper, which draws on the results of a larger research project including the work of several persons, we investigate the ongoing process of labour market "flexibilisation" and its consequences both at individual level and for social inequalities. We do so by looking at individual occupational, economic and demographic careers in a longitudinal perspective. We demonstrate how the specific form of "flexibilisation" led to strong cleavages in society and to a further segmentation of the labour market, thus accumulating risks on younger cohorts (and women). However, consequences are not limited to occupational careers but have far reaching negative consequence also for the private and family life. Methodologically we rely on event history and panel models to cope with unobserved heterogeneity problems using data from ILFI, Eu/It-Silc, and the new Istat FSS-2009, supplemented by information from the ECHP and the European Social Survey.
Keywords: Social consequences of labor market flexibilization, young people, insider-outsider