Europe: the role of capabilities and human capital

The paper presents some significant results of the YOUTH project (Young in Occupations and Unemployment: THinking of their better integration in the labour market), promoted by the European Commission – DG Employment. The paper assumes that flexicurity is very important for young workers, because they are (as new entrants in the labour market and as workers with peculiar qualitative structural characteristics) particularly exposed to risks of unemployment, “atypical” employment and precariousness trap. In this framework, we perform a principal component and a cluster analyses to classify the EU Member States in accordance with the degree of achievement of flexicurity for young people. The analysis use a set of indicators wider than that identified in the four flexicurity pillars proposed by the EC and includes flexibility and security components more targeted to young people needs. In particular, we use further human capital indicators and some measures of combination security and young people autonomy, that we propose as indicators of individuals’ “real opportunities”, strictly tied to the concept of “capabilities”.