Trajectoires et identités dans les emplois précaires en Italie

The world of work is one of the spheres in which individuals acquire their sense of self-identity; what then are the effects of precarious employment conditions on this process? A survey carried out in Italy has shown that the spread of unstable employment conditions has had effects of two kinds on workers¿ sense of identity. Individuals who are satisfied with their work are able to identify with it, however unstable their work contracts may be, whereas people whose activities do not come up to their expectations can use the instability of their employment in order to procrastinate the definition of their self-identity and they are sometimes late in acquiring a sense of self-identity because of the procrastinatory strategies they use. These strategies can be dangerous, however, since they are liable to undermine workers¿ strategic and contractual abilities.