The first paper by Armanda Cetrulo, Angelica Sbardella and Maria Enrica Virgillito investigates the changing nature of wage inequality in Italy by relying on INPS (social security) data. They find that the within-component of variations in wages mainly concerns gender, age and geographical features. The professional category is the only between-variation attribute to prevail corroborating the fact that professional differences – trainees, blue vs white-collar workers, managers etc. – still represent the greatest source of wage inequality. Wage losses appear to be prominent mostly for women, the youth, and Southern regions. Overall, the paper highlights a remarkable increase in wage inequality.

The second paper by Francesco Maccelli studies the evolution of occupations in Italy’s censuses (1871 – 2011) and its relationship with technological change and the Industrial Revolutions. Maccelli finds that the number of professions listed in censuses increased remarkably over the period concerned, while the ratio of specialized to general occupations among male workers also grew substantially. Perhaps most interestingly, the paper studies the skill distribution of the labour force over time. According to the results, changes followed closely the rise of new technologies and their widespread applications. Among other things, this work confirms the prior that the second technological wave (1950 – 1970) was a major deskilling period, characterized by mass production technologies which required lower skilled workers.