Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Does flexicurity promote the employment of disabled people? A panel analysis for Italian regional data

  • Published:
Quality & Quantity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of flexicurity upon regional labour market performance in the employment of disabled people. To this purpose, we implement a static model, via 2SLS, and a dynamic model, via GMM-system, on Italian regions for the period 2006–2011. Our results show a failure of flexicurity for people with disabilities in terms of policy, it is important to promote more flexibility in the laws governing the employment of disabled people and in contributory benefits transfer programmes. Moreover, it is necessary to promote policy actions aimed at supporting private firms in their production process.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The medical model sees disability as an attribute relative to physical and/or mental characteristics of the individual person, while the social model recognises the role of physical and social environment as a contributing cause of person’s social disadvantage. In the wake of this paradigm shift, a third model—the bio-psycho-social model—emerged as a result of various studies from the 1980s onwards that examined the relationship between disability and environment. This new model takes into account medical, psychological and socio-environmental aspects of disability. This approach underlies the WHO’s revision of the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicap (ICIDH) (WHO 1980) and the later development of the International Classification of Functioning (ICF). On the basis of these classifications, the 54th World Health Assembly proposed the ICF as an international framework for assessing disability (WHO, 2001). On a theoretical level, the ICF represents a synthesis of medical and social models and provides a survey of various perspectives on health through a broader conception of disability.

  2. In Appendix 1 we report some information on Law 68/99.

  3. The ALMPs measure can be defined as either the expenditure (as a percentage of GDP) on ALMPs or the number of participants in ALMP programmes. The empirical analysis uses the participants in programmes of active policies as a percentage of the labour force (Altavilla and Caroleo 2013). In this study, we use the number of disabled people participating in ALMP as a percentage of the labour force of people with disabilities.

  4. Secondo Rapporto sulla coesione sociale. http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/53075 (Accessed 16 November 2013).

  5. In Appendix 2 we report some information on Article 13 Law 68/99 modified by Law 247/2007.

  6. Civilian disability pensions are not connected with national insurance contributions; they are paid to disabled people on the basis of their physical characteristics (e.g., people affected by blindness, deafness, or other types of impairments). These pensions are also paid to people with no income or insufficient income after the age of 65 (Ministry of Employment 2006, 2008).

  7. Assistenza e previdenza. http://www.istat.it/it/assistenza-e-previdenza (Accessed 16 November 2013).

  8. This Fund, established by the Ministry of Employment, has financed until 2008 measures of the exemption from the social security contributions paid by the employer and charge from compulsory insurance against accidents at work for disabled trainees as well as the partial lump-sum reimbursement of expenses incurred for the adaptation of the workplace. The exemption from social and welfare security contributions could be total or partial depending on the degree of reduced capacity to work of disabled people employed. It has been one of the main innovations introduced by Law 68/99 representing a valid tool in order to facilitate job placements for people with severe disabilities. This finds its raison d'être in the purposes of the EC Regulation which recommends member States to consider the State aid as a tool not only for the recruitment of persons with disabilities, but also for the permanence of disabled workers in the labour market.

  9. Sesta relazione al Parlamento sullo stato di attuazione della Legge 12 marzo 1999, n. 68 “Norme per il diritto al lavoro dei disabili”: anni 2010–2011 http://sbnlo2.cilea.it/bw5ne2/opac.aspx?WEB=ISFL&IDS=18912 (Accessed 16 November 2013).

  10. In the case of temporally lagged dependent variable, we use as additional instrument the temporal lag of second order of dependent variable (see Hsiao 2003).

  11. ISFOL does not specify whether the match variable includes also employed disabled people who are looking for a job, in addition to the unemployed disabled people who find a job. Since job placement for disabled people is based on enrolment to employment centers, it is natural to think that after a job placement the disabled person is deleted from the list of unemployed people with disabilities looking for work; this suggests that a new enrolment means that the disabled person is unemployed again and therefore the match variable only includes the outflows into employment of unemployed disabled people.

  12. Through agreements, signed by the interested parties (workers, employers, provincial offices for the employment of disabled workers and authorities that promote the labour integration), it is possible to define a personalized program of interventions in order to overcome barriers related to the inclusion in the workplace. The agreements represent the tool by which the legislation seeks to promote the integration targeted, through a gradual labour integration of people with disabilities, aimed at the achievement of the employment obligations.

  13. In this case, ISFOL does not make a distinction between the unemployed looking for employment and the unemployed who are not looking for a job; for this reason, the variable of unemployment will be distorted upwards.

  14. The ‘labour market tightness’ is interpreted as describing the balance between the demand for, and the supply of, labour. This follows from the notion that the labour market is tight (loose) when there is an imbalance between labour demand and labour supply, which will exert upward (downward) pressure on real unit labour costs, or equivalently on the labour share. When labour demand is weak, employers are reluctant to hire and the number of unfilled vacancies is low while the unemployment rate is high.

  15. In its first paragraph Article 13 explicitly refers to “agreements”, i.e. three sided employment contracts (employment services, employers, workers) aimed at facilitating the employment of disabled people.

References

  • Addabbo, T., Krishnakumar, J., Sarti E.: To what extent does disability discourage from work? An empirical analysis of labour force participation of disabled people in Italy. CAP Papers No. 109, Department of Economics Marco Biagi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (2013)

  • Agovino, M., Parodi, G.: Civilian disability pensions as an antipoverty policy instrument? A spatial analysis of Italian provinces, 2003–2005. In: Parodi, G., Sciulli, D. (eds.), Social Exclusion, AIEL Series in Labour Economics. Springer Verlag, Berlin (2012). doi:10.1007/978-3-7908-2772-9_8

  • Agovino, M., Rapposelli, A.: Employment of disabled people in the private sector. An analysis at the level of Italian Provinces according to article 13 of Law 68/99. Qual. Quant. 48(3), 1537–1552 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Altavilla, C., Caroleo, F.E.: Asymmetric effects of national-based active labour market policies. Reg. Stud. 47(9), 1482–1506 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arellano, M., Bond, S.R.: Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. Rev. Econ. Stud. 58, 277–297 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arellano, M., Bover, O.: Another look at the instrumental-variable estimation of error-components models. J. Econom. 68, 29–52 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arsenjeva, J.: Annotated review of European Union law and policy with reference to disability. Report Prepared for the Academic Network of European Disability experts (ANED), University of Leeds, Leeds (2009)

  • Bekker, S., Wilthagen, T.: Europe’s pathways to flexicurity: lessons presented from and to the Netherlands. Intereconomics 43, 68–73 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blundell, R.W., Bond, S.R.: Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models. J. Econom. 87, 115–143 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boeri, T.: Learning from transition economies: assessing labor market policies across Central and Eastern Europe. J. Comp. Econ. 25, 366–384 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boeri, T., Burda, M.C.: Active labor market policies, job matching and the Czech miracle. Eur. Econ. Rev. 40, 805–817 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broersma, L., van Ours, J.C.: Job searchers, job matches and the elasticity of matching. Labour Econ. 6(1), 77–93 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burda, M.C.: Modelling exits from unemployment in Eastern Germany: a matching function approach. In: CEPR Discussion Papers 800, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers (1993)

  • Coles, M.G., Smith, E.: Marketplaces and matching. Int. Econ. Rev. 39, 239–254 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Criscuolo, C., Martin, R., Overman, H., Van Reenen, J.: The causal effects of an industrial policy, In: NBER Working Paper No. 17842 (2012)

  • de Groot, A.J., Elhorst, P.: Labour market of flexicurity from a regional perspective. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 101(4), 392–408 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eichorst, W., Kendzia, M.J., Knudsen, J.B., Hanse, M.O., Vandeweghe, B., Vanhoren, I., Ruckert, E., Schulte, B. The mobility and integration of people with disabilities into the labour market. IZA Research Report No. 29 (2010)

  • Fahr, R., Sunde, U.: Did the Hartz reforms speed-up the matching process? A macro-evaluation using empirical matching functions. Ger. Econ. Rev. 10(3), 284–316 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, P., Petrongolo, B.: Stock-flow matching and the performance of the labor market. Eur. Econ. Rev. 49, 1987–2011 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greve, B., (2009) The labour market situation of disabled people in European countries and implementation of employment policies: a summary of evidence from country reports and research studies, Report Prepared for the Academic Network of European Disability experts (ANED), University of Leeds, Leeds

  • Hansen, L.P.: Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators. Econometrica 50(4), 1029–1054 (1982)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsiao, C.: Analysis of panel data, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press (Econometric Society Monograph No. 34, Cambridge (2003)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lottman, F.: Spatial dependencies in German matching functions. Reg. Sci. Urban Econ. 42, 27–41 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Madsen P.K.: “Flexicurity” through labour market policies and institutions in Denmark. In: Auer, P., Cazes, S. (eds.) Employment stability in an age of flexibility, pp. 59–105. Geneve, International Labour Office, Geneve (2002a)

  • Madsen, P.K.: The Danish model of flexicurity: a paradise—with some snakes. In: Sarfati, H., Bonoli, G. (eds.) Employment protection reforms in international perspective, pp. 243–265. Ashgate, Aldershot (2002b)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ministry of Employment: Quarta relazione al parlamento sullo stato di attuazione della legge 12 marzo 1999, n. 68, Norme per il diritto al lavoro dei disabili, Roma (2006–2007)

  • Ministry of Employment: Quinta relazione al parlamento sullo stato di attuazione della legge 12 marzo 1999, n. 68, Norme per il diritto al lavoro dei disabili, Roma (2008–2009)

  • Ministry of Employment: Quinta relazione al parlamento sullo stato di attuazione della legge 12 marzo 1999, n. 68, Norme per il diritto al lavoro dei disabili, Roma (2010–2011)

  • OECD: Sickness, disability and work: keeping on track in the economic downturn, background paper for the high-level forum. OECD, Stockholm (2009a)

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD: Sickness, disability and work. Addressing policy challenges in OECD countries, OECD high-level forum. OECD, Stockholm (2009b)

    Google Scholar 

  • Orlando, N., Patrizio, M.: Il collocamento mirato dei disabili: l’applicazione della legge 68/1999 nella Provincia di Bolzano. In: Parodi, G. (ed.) Aspetti socioeconomici della disabilità, pp. 179–216. Aracne Editrice, Roma (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Petrangolo, B., Pissaridies, C.: Looking into the black box: a survey of the matching function. J. Econ. Lit. 39, 390–431 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogowski, R.: Governance of the European Social Model: the case of flexicurity. Intereconomics 43, 82–91 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Shima, I., Zólyomi, E., Zaidi, A.: The labour market situation of people with disabilities in EU25. European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Policy Brief February (I), Vienna (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Staiger, D., Stock, J.H.: Instrumental variables regression with weak instruments. Econometrica 65(3), 557–586 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, M.: New microfoundations for the aggregate matching function. Int. Econ. Rev. 48(3), 847–868 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WHO: International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps A Manual of Classification Relating to the Consequences of Disease. World Health Organization, Geneva (1980)

    Google Scholar 

  • WHO: International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. World Health Organization, Geneva (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilthagen, T., Rogoswski, R.: The legal regulation of transitional labour markets. In: Schmid, G., Gazier, B. (eds.) The dynamics of full employment, pp. 233–273. Edwar Elgar, Cheltenham (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilthagen, T., Tros, F.: The concept of ‘flexicurity: a new approach to regulating employment and labour markets. Eur. Rev. Labour Res. 10(2), 166–186 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, J.: Denmark’s flexicurity model: the answer for Europe? Intereconomics 43, 78–82 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, J.: Danish for all? Balancing flexibility with security: the flexicurity model, IMF Working Paper WP/07/36 (2007)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic and Legal Studies, University “Parthenope” of Naples, Naples, Italy

    Massimiliano Agovino

  2. Department of Economics, “G. D’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, Pescara, Italy

    Agnese Rapposelli

Authors
  1. Massimiliano Agovino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Agnese Rapposelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Massimiliano Agovino.

Appendices

Appendix 1

1.1 Law 68 of March 12, 1999: some clarifications

Law 68/99 is addressed to: “the working-age people suffering from physical, mental or sensory and intellectual disabilities, resulting in a reduced capacity to work for more than 45 percent…”, “Disabled from work with a degree of incapacity of more than 33 percent…”, “the blind or the deaf-mute…”, “war invalids, civil war invalids and disabled for service with disabilities ascribed from the first to the eighth category…”.

The prerequisite to take advantage of the benefits provided by Law 68/99 is the inclusion in the compulsory employment lists, that are held by the Employment Services of the provincial governments. Employment services usually enrol the applicant in the lists of compulsory employment conditionally to further assessment of disability by health care bodies. Next to the entering, the disabled person is then able to join the job opportunities that come to the Employment Service from both public bodies and private companies, by filling out the form reservation.

Law 68/99 provides that private employers can sign a contract with these cooperatives, in order to temporarily employ the disabled person in the same social cooperatives, to which employers agree to assign work orders. This special three sided employment contract represents the novelty introduced by this law.

Appendix 2

1.1 Article 13, Law 68 of March 12, 1999: some clarifications

Article 13 modified by the law 247/2007… [states that] the regions and autonomous provinces may grant a contribution to employment (a) for no more than 60 % of the wage cost for each disabled worker who, hired through the agreementsFootnote 15 (see Article 11) with a permanent contract, has a reduced capacity to work of more than 79 %… (b) for no more than 25 % of the wage cost for each disabled worker who, hired by the conventions (see Article 11) with a permanent contract, has a reduced capacity to work between 67 and 79 %… employers who hire disabled people with a permanent contract may be eligible for the exemption from the social security and welfare grants specified in subsection 1…. The incentives provided in subsection 1 shall also extend to private employers that, while not subject to obligations of this Law, have hired people with disabilities with a permanent contract… [Furthermore, if]… the employment relationship between the employer and the worker has exceeded the 36 months, including extensions and renewals, regardless of interrupting periods that occur between a contract and the other, the employment relationship is considered as a permanent contract …The worker who, in the execution of one or more contracts with the same company, worked for a period exceeding 6 months is entitled to priority [on non-disabled workers] in the open-ended contracts made by the employer within the next 12 months based on the tasks carried out within the temporary contract.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Agovino, M., Rapposelli, A. Does flexicurity promote the employment of disabled people? A panel analysis for Italian regional data. Qual Quant 50, 2085–2105 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-015-0252-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-015-0252-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation