USING REDDITO DI CITTADINANZA AS BASIC INCOME DURING THE PANDEMIC. The pragmatic approach of young highly-skilled, underemployed welfare recipients

Abstract

Abstract

Italian young adults are at risk of precarity even when they are highlyskilled, but they lack protection from the welfare system, which mostly fails to respond to the needs of atypical workers. However, highly-skilled youth started to request welfare support in higher numbers from the onset of the pandemic. The article analyses the experience of 32 young highly-skilled adults who received conditional income support (Reddito di Cittadinanza). Their semi-structured interviews depict experiences mostly characterised by uncertainty and fragility: prior to the application, as the working careers are mostly fragmented; and once recipients, due to challenges in maintaining the benefit, because of income fluctuations due to atypical occupations.
The article makes an important contribution to the literature by bringing to the spotlight the lived experience of an understudied population in Italy, subject to invisibilisation in the public discourse on welfare.

Keywords:
precarious work; youth; basic income; pandemic; underemployment.