The paths of transition between school and work in Italy represent a particularly sensitive period for youth, primarily because the work is one of the most important stages of the transition to adulthood, and secondly because in Italy this passage traditionally lacked of appropriate mechanisms and institutional arrangements that supported young people in transition.

Only recently, following the example of other European countries, have been introduced in Italy means to facilitate young people's entry into the labor market: traineeships in Italy and abroad, job training scholarships, a new form of apprenticeship that foresee also a certain amount of yearly theoretical learning.

Albeit belatedly, even in Italy is growing an institutional culture that considers the school to work transition and the accompaniment of young workers an indispensable instrument to ensure the best level of compatibility between acquired skills and professional needs of enterprises, avoiding, thus, the loss of essential resources for the socio-economic development.

The first tool to optimize the compatibility of skills acquired by young people and professional needs of companies is represented, of course, by career guidance and orientation, but the level of use of those services at the end of lower secondary school and at the end of upper secondary school is still very low, especially at the end of lower secondary.

In Italy the transition between school and working life varies based on specific characteristics:

• being a woman
• live in the South of Italy
• belong to a working class family
• belong to a family with a medium cultural level