Measuring labour market inter-temporal mobility in Italy: theory and evidence

Aim of the paper is to provide a new class of mobility indices that takes into account the inter-temporal status movements over more than two periods of time. The index is obtained in two steps. First, an individual inter-temporal individual mobility index is provided, which allows also for analysis of upward and downward mobility. Since memory plays an important role when individual makes comparisons with his past, a discount factor has been introduced. Secondly, individual mobility indicators are aggregated over all the population, in order to obtain an index which allows for comparisons among different societies. The empirical application analyzes the mobility of the occupational status in the Italian labour market within an inter-temporal framework, using the Italian Compulsory Communications system data.