Article 3 of the Constitution, approved on March 24, 1947, included gender equality among the founding principles of the newly formed Republic. Since then, legislation has changed a great deal in favor of women: from employment guarantees to legal and social protections, from the protection of sexual freedom to opportunities for access to the country's political life. In this, the Constitutional Court has played a leading role: its jurisprudence and urgings have been followed by fundamental reforms.

According to the mainstream economic thought, a more flexible labour market better responds to the enterprises' need to curb costs and boost efficiency. However, it also sparks a market dualism between guaranteed and non-guaranteed workers, income uncertainty, depressive effects on the economy. As for employment, has it soared or dropped? And what about productivity? Here are the main conclusions reached by experts, IMF, World Bank and OECD.

Italy holds an EU record: 19.9% versus an EU average of 11.5%. One youth in five does not attend school, does not work and is not looking for a job. The trend is falling (in 2013 almost 23 young men out of 100 were doing nothing) but if we consider inactive youths aged between 25 and 29, equally affected by unemployment (in Italy, Greece and Spain the figure tops 40%), the NEET generation exceeds 2.2 million people.