Who were and who are the poorest and the richest people in Italy.: The changing household's characteristics of the people at the bottom and the top of the income distribution

During the last decades there has been a deep change in the structure of inequality in western societies. Many authors have underlined the increasing social fragmentation which results from the “dramatic” transformations of the labour market, the family and the welfare state (see for example: Crouch 1999; Esping-Andersen 1999; Martinelli, Chiesi, Stefanizzi 1999; Mingione 1991; Ranci 2002; Standing 1999). A great part of the most recent debate on poverty and social exclusion is about the changes in causes and characteristics of social vulnerability affecting individuals in contemporary societies. The risk structure of post industrial societies is very different from the structure of social risks on which it was built the post-war welfare state (Esping-Andersen 1999). As a consequence, both the distribution of risks across the society and the structure of inequality in contemporary societies are completely different from those found in the mid-century compromise societies.