Abstract

At the beginning of the Fifties, Istat started in Italy the first experiments of the Labor Force sampling survey. At the same time Italian Parliament promoted and official enquire about unemployment, with regional studies among which distinguishes that dedicated to Emilia, composed by the Institute of Statistics of the University of Bologna under the direction of Paolo Fortunati. Fortunati criticized harshley the assumption at the basis of the survey sampling, “that each household is would equally possible” with respect to the situation of employment, unemployment and underemployment. In this work we aim to revisit Fortunati’s contribution and to interpret at his light the recent evolution of labor market in Italy.