In-work poverty and regional disparities. An analysis of the relationship between work intensity and the probability of being and feeling poor across Italian territories

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Claudia Colombarolli
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/161 Language English
Pages 24 P. 76-93 File size 320 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2021-161005
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Work intensity is considered one relevant factor in shaping the risk of experiencing in-work poverty, i.e., being a worker with a household income below the relative poverty line. However, little attention has been paid to how work intensity is associated with workers’ subjective poverty (i.e., their feeling of being in-work poor) and to how this association varies across geographical areas. Therefore, the present work intends to fill this gap and investigate the relationship between work-intensity and the risk of experiencing in-work poverty, in both objective and subjective terms as well as differences among local contexts, i.e., regions and degrees of urbanisation. The analysis is based on 2018 cross-sectional data from the Italian module of the Eu-Silc survey. Empirical results show that work intensity is negatively associated with both objective and subjective in-work poverty, but the relation is stronger with the former. Furthermore, densely, intermediate and thinly populated areas show similar trends, whereas there is a persistent gap between, on the one hand, the North-Center of Italy and, on the other, the South, which has the highest risk of objective and subjective in-work poverty. However, the latter is also the area where the association between work intensity and in-work poverty is stronger.

Keywords: In-work poverty, Work Intensity, Subjective Poverty, Territorial Disparities

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Claudia Colombarolli, In-work poverty and regional disparities. An analysis of the relationship between work intensity and the probability of being and feeling poor across Italian territories in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 161/2021, pp 76-93, DOI: 10.3280/SL2021-161005