Weak groups on the labour market

Abstract

At present, social sciences seem to be going through some crucial turning points which are extensively questioning the analytical potentialities of their own interpretative paradigms. The traditional conceptual ‘instruments’, in fact, appear to be less and less capable of coping with the need to find definite answers to the questions posed by a rapidly changing society. An issue which is, under these terms, becoming more and more relevant, in particular for all those disciplines which have labour as their main subject of research, concerns the development of new and never before seen groups of ‘weak’ subjects. What seems to emerge strongly, in fact, is a growing circular correlation between social weakness and the position held by a subject in the labour market. Therefore, the following chapter is an attempt — without any claim to be complete — towards presenting some reflections concerning this issue on a European level.

Even if the whole Chapter 2 is the result of a common work, Chapter 2.1. can directly be attributed to Michele La Rosa and the others to Federico Chicchi.