Keeping It In The Family? Towards an Understanding of the Role of Economic Conditions in Determining Youth Labour Market Entry, Home-Leaving and Educational Participation

In this paper I examine a number of issues related to the Italian youth labour market and youth labour market entry, over the last decade or so. The analysis is motivated by a number of characteristics of the youth labour market in this country, which although shared to some extent by youth labour markets in other countries, tend to be particularly pronounced in Italy. Specifically, in recent years, Italy has witnessed: a) a very high youth unemployment rate, and, above-all high ratio of youth to adult unemployment rates; b) a strong increasing trend in educational participation amongst young people under twenty-five; c) a strong and increasing tendency to delay departure from the parental home; c) a strong decreasing trend in the marriage rate amongst younger people. The paper takes a broad approach to the analysis of these questions looking first at time trends in labour market entry, human capital accumulation, home leaving and family formation on the basis of information contained in the Italian Labour Force Survey using also the Bank of Italy’s Survey on Household Income and Wealth.