• labour market; inequalities; structural reforms

How has wage inequality evolved in recent decades? The main motivation of this work is to identify and characterize patterns of wage inequality across geographical areas of Italy. This perspective is motivated by a large body of literature highlighting the detrimental effects of geographical disparities. These patterns are evaluated as a result of a national strategy of labour market flexibilization within a context of slowing labour productivity in the economy as a whole. The analysis is conducted through descriptive statistics and a decomposition analysis of the main inequality indicators, to address the different roles played by workforce attributes (i.e., job qualification, gender, and age) across the Italian macro-regions.