Skating on the Thin Ice. Giovani, lavoro atipico e percorsi di stabilizzazione occupazionale.

The paper focuses on young people and their paths towards occupational stability in Italy, which may include non-standard work contracts. Besides a review of the literature on the topic, outcomes will be offered of a qualitative research on the career paths of forty youths who got open-end contracts in the private service sector. In the theoretical part, after a definition of atypical work and an esteem of the width of this social phenomenon, we shall deal with different sociological analysis of young people’s career paths, currently exposed to the risk of a precarious professional and social condition. The same aspects will be discussed in the empirical research. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews, we are set to find out whether atypical work, which at the very beginning of a career can be can be considered even as a “goal”, becomes an effective gateway to stable and guaranteed jobs (hypothesis of the “jumping board”) or an obstacle (hypothesis of the “trap”). The paper aims also to understand which economic, cultural, and relational resources can become relevant for a successful transition from precarious to permanent employment.