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Introduction
The regulation of labor relations in our country has undergone important transformations in recent decades, beginning with the “Treu Package” (Law 196/1997), “Biagi Reform” (Law 30/2003), “Fornero Reform” (Law 92/2012), and finally, “The Law on Work” (Law 183/2014). These reforms were aimed at making the Italian labor market more flexible.
For more than twenty years, political rhetoric aimed at supporting legislative changes has attributed miraculous opportunities for labor flexibility: increasing employment, access for young people to the labor market, and increasing productivity in the country, to name just a few.
The life stories of “flexible” workers often tell stories that are rarely found in the media: that highly qualified specialists are paid less than the cost of living; couples where both earn do not have the opportunity to take a loan to buy the first house; workers are forced to postpone motherhood for fear of losing their jobs; men and women without a working personality important for their dignity in the public.
Economic, social, and legal literature, often with compulsory transdisciplinary analysis, has highlighted the less acceptable consequences of progressive labor market flexibility.
One of the goals of this book is to critically examine the factor of flexible work. As we can see, there are numerous studies that explain why flexibility does not contribute to productivity growth, but rather reduces it. Because flexible contracts are not a tool to enter the work market, but a tool to gradually reduce the level of protection in the workplace. Because flexibility reduces the commerce power of workers and, therefore, reduces wages on equal terms.
Sociological research has played an important role in the fight against “taken for granted” mass information. Studies, published since the late 1990s that emphasize the impact of work flexibility on a person (Sennett 1999; Bauman 2000; Paugam 2000;) and on family choice (Esping Andersen 1995; Saraceno 1999; Fullin 2002;). Sennett’s “Flexible Man” (1999) and Bauman’s “Modern Liquidity” (2000), are certainly reference works in this area.
The authors are divided into two areas with regard to the influence of work flexibility on the individual: some distinguish progressive “personality corrosion” due to the fragmentation of “work experience”, which makes it difficult to apply skills at a professional level and personal education (Sennett 1999); others argue that the growing “fluidity” of an individual through professional transformations makes a person more suitable for a changing context (Bauman 2000). There is an intermediate literature that defines the elements of mediation that are considered necessary for the synthesis of two positions, such as the level of personal satisfaction (Paugam 2000) or employee perception of flexibility as a resource for improvement (Fullin 2004).
The impact of work flexibility on family choice and family creation is also noted (Esping Andersen 1995; Saraceno 1999; Fullin 2002), especially with regard to individual decisions to create a new family and children, as well as the model of the family to be adopted (Salmieri 2006 ) Given that the working dimension influences the personality and its choice, it is necessary to look for possible effects also from the point of view of family value and the growth of the child: the family is a single unit closest to the individual.
It is in terms of this issue, the effects of flexibility on family dynamics, that this study has a significant contribution. The book discusses a system of qualitative and quantitative arguments in support of the fact that, at least in Italy, work flexibility can affect not only the personality of the flexible worker and his family, but also the transgenerational consequences. The impact of work flexibility on families can have consequences for future generations.
The hypothesis formulated here is as follows: working flexibility affects the upbringing of children, and development affects the family and the growth of the child. The quantitative analysis carried out in this study emphasizes an indicator that describes the impact of work flexibility on a generation: there is a connection between the different types of contracts with which the initial figure of the child (usually the mother) is assumed, and the development of the infant’s language. This relationship, apparently, is mediated precisely by the presence of parental rights, for example in the case of breastfeeding. In fact, just over 25% of flexible workers, versus about 60% of workers with a stable contract, use permits for breastfeeding. This factor has an obvious (and significant) effect on the development of the child’s tongue: failure to use the permission for breastfeeding significantly increases (approximately 48%) the likelihood that the child belongs to the group of children who have a slow development of the language.
The data obtained as a result of this study, in particular, to children aged 0 to 3 years, empirically confirm the hypothesis of a transgenerative effect caused by flexibility and mediated by various means of protecting paternity.
This conclusion was made in the context of extensive research in this area, aimed at analyzing some hypotheses regarding the impact of flexible contracts on a person and family, as well as the relationship between the balance of family / work / childcare in the context of kindergartens and schools in Milan.
These studies are interdisciplinary in nature, where elements of analysis, typicaly of economics, law, sociology and psychology intersect.
The first chapter will determine the meaning of two key concepts for this study: “family” and “flexibility”. In fact, the definition of the term “family” is especially necessary in order to exclude the possibility of ideological prejudice on this topic from the very beginning. Here the family is regarded as a “seminarium civitatis”, which means the core of the transfer of capital between generations and, therefore, its reproductive, educational, emotional, attached, protective and supportive functions of the “human baby”. An explanation of the meaning of “flexibility” at work, on the other hand, defines the boundaries and object of this analysis.
The second chapter will be devoted to debunking some false myths about the influence of flexibility. The relationship between flexibility, productivity and wages of workers will be examined more deeply due to the contribution of key representatives of various economic institutions, as well as the effectiveness of flexibility as a tool for access to the labor market.
Case studies regarding the impact of work flexibility on a person and his family will be taken into account. A knowledge of these studies will help to understand how flexibility affects the employee’s value system and choice, not only in relation to the individual aspect of work, but also in relation to the personality aspect and even the family aspect.
The fourth and fifth chapters will offer an analysis of Italy’s labor law and the system of social protection of paternity. This will help the reader learn about the regulation of the main institutions and subsidies associated with the flexible and stable contracts offered by the Italian system, as well as understand the reasons for the difference in the effectiveness of these protection methods.
It must be remembered that labor law has a protective function. Laws for the protection of paternity are designed to protect reproduction: the birth of a child is of value to the whole society. As will be noted in the sixth chapter, the protection of parental rights is actually aimed at preserving the living conditions that medical, psychological and social studies have identified as determining factors in family well-being and child development.
In the seventh chapter, will be presented research to test some theoretical hypotheses regarding the impact of flexible contracts. 9 936 families with a child aged 0 to 3 years who attended a kindergarten in Milan were analyzed. To be sure of the results also from a statistical point of view, the analysis methodology with the use of statistical calculations is presented in a special appendix to this book.
In conclusion, this study provides arguments confirming that increasing the flexibility of labor relations is a risky and dangerous path. Flexibility can neither increase employment nor increase productivity. More realistic, it is a method to reduce wages.
The lack of methods to support and protect structurally less productive workers (such as female workers) can be detrimental not only to the well-being and lifestyle choices of modern families, but also to future generations: child development is also associated with protection of maternity and paternity guaranteed to parents.
Twenty years of “reform” in Italy have seriously underestimated these risks or may not have taken them into account.
The transgenerational effect of work flexibility is now so influential that some indicators make it possible to measure this effect.
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