Polarisation in the labour market: a gender perspective

The labour market transformations of the last two decades have been interpreted by many as a process of polarisation, first highlighted for the United States, then investigated in Europe as well. This polarisation takes place through a joint growth of the extreme groups of the labour force, the most qualified and the least qualified, against a depletion of the core groups of workers. The reasons for this shift towards the extremes of the distribution are to be found in the effects of the so-called digital transition: the increasing spread of 4.0 technologies creates a new demand for skilled labour, while expelling the more repetitive functions, both cognitive and manual. The weight of manufacturing labour has actually contracted, due to both the introduction of technological innovations and relocations to countries with lower labour costs. This has favoured the tertiarisation of the economy, with the emergence of highly specialised figures in the provision of advanced services, but also with the growing weight of personal services, driven by the ageing of the population and the defamiliarisation of care activities.

Italy represents an anomaly in this panorama, because studies on the national case show how the increase in demand for low-skilled labour in services has not been matched by a similar growth in skilled employment, due to the low absorption by our production system of graduate workers, to which is added the weak demand from the public sector, which has been slowed down for many years by the hiring freeze.

Confirming this trend, in the post-pandemic period, the economic activities in which jobs increased the most were tourism, logistics and personal services, where demand for low-skilled occupations is prominent.

It may be interesting to apply a gender perspective to this type of analysis. The phenomena of horizontal and vertical segregation that characterise women’s work are well known, as is the growth in recent decades in the number of women with diplomas and degrees, with specific skills and a greater propensity to participate in the labour market. However, obstacles to full employment for women remain, mainly due to the burden of family care activities and lower average incomes received.