Does university choice drive graduates' employability? (original) (raw)
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Working Papers, 2011
The AlmaLaurea working paper series is designed to make available to a wide readership selected works by AlmaLaurea staff or by outside, generally available in English or Italian. The series focuses on the study of the relationship between educational systems, society and economy, the quality of educational process, the demand and supply of education, the human capital accumulation, the structure and working of the labour markets, the assessment of educational policies. Comments on this series are welcome and should be sent to pubblicazioni@almalaurea.it.
University quality and labour market outcomes
Applied Economics, 2003
This paper uses proxies for university quality derived from Performance Indicators to evaluate the impact of university quality on the early labour market outcome of a cohort of recent Italian graduates. Institutional research quality is found to have a negative effect on the probability that both male and female graduates will be overeducated. Additionally, research inputs are positively related to men's wages. In contrast, teaching quality does not appear to enhance students' economic success.
University pathways and graduate labour market outcomes in Italy: What Matters Where?
Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 2010
The first aim of this paper is to test whether graduates' qualifying elements (GQE), work experience during university and academic performance, are associated with better labour market outcomes. The second aim is to test whether these associations vary across fields of study, linked to different occupational contexts. We observe that different GQE protect from different risks: previous jobs reduce the unemployment and unstable job rates, while higher final marks reduce the risk of being overeducated. Graduates from the humanistic field of study experience lower trade-offs between working during university and academic performance; at the same time, they gain more occupational stability from previous work during university, but also greater risk of entrapment in the condition of being overeducated. These are relevant differences to the changing Italian context; considering the increasing rate of humanistic graduates and of unstable job positions, the detected differences among fields of study could change the graduate labour market transition.
Research in Applied Economics, 2011
Generally graduates have more opportunity of finding a job than undergraduates. However a degree does not always lead to the expected labour market outcomes in terms of job quality. Italian graduates are not an exception in this regard. A University Reform (DM 509/99), implemented in the academic year 2001/2002, introduced a switch from a one-level university education system with just one type of degree to a two-level structure: the first lasting three years and the second another two additional years. 2010 is the first year for which data on labour market outcomes are available for second level graduates at three years after graduation. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the empirical literature by providing evidence of the job quality of graduates from a university located in Southern Italy, an area with structural problems in the labour market. The sample includes all summer session 2007 graduates from the University of Calabria. The quality of jobs at three years after graduation is studied in terms of type of contract, educational match and wage. More specifically, the paper aims to identify determinants of the contract type, educational match and wage. Our findings suggest that field of study is the main determinant of job quality. In particular, graduates in Engineering and in Pharmacy, are more likely to find a stable, well matched, and better paid job, with respect to graduates in other fields.
Field of Study and University Graduates' Early Employment Outcomes in Italy during 1995–2004
Labour, 2009
Abstract. In a period of expanding higher education, the field of study becomes a key determinant of university graduates' labour market success. In this paper, by means of multivariate analyses of the quality of graduates' early employment outcomes, we first describe how the effect of different fields of study on the university-to-work transition changed between 1995 and 2004 in Italy. Second, we put forward some alternative hypotheses to interpret the changes observed over time and assess which ones seem to be more consistent with the data.
Is There Still A Chance Of Finding A Stable Job? Evidence From A University In Southern Italy
Working Papers, 2010
Differing characteristics in the labour market and educational system may lead to different outcomes both in terms of the speed of finding a job and of the job's stability. We investigate whether having occupational specific human capital, as measured by the field of study, is associated with a higher probability of finding a stable job in a labour market which is flexible as regards atypical jobs but highly protective regarding stable jobs. We apply a discrete-time hazard model, taking into account unobservable heterogeneity, to analyse the transition to a stable job of students who graduated from the University of Calabria in 2004, at one, three and five years distance. Main findings indicate that, after controlling for a wide range of characteristics, Economics and Business graduates have a lower probability of finding a stable job than graduates in Engineering, followed by those with a degree in Sciences, Political Science, and Humanities. These results confirm that, even in a deprived area, investing in occupational specific human capital can be seen as an "insurance" against the risk of unemployment or unstable jobs.
2016
Students’ choices about post-secondary fields of study vary widely across space and time, due to many psychological, social and economic motivations. Regarding these latter, the most important role in steering students’ options has been often ascribed to expected returns from different occupations. This paper emphasizes in particular the link between local institutional quality, the reward structure and students’ preferences. Based on a sample of 80,996 students graduated in Italy in 2004 and 2007, our econometric investigation, controlling for both individual characteristics (gender, residence, family background, high school track) and geographical variables (per capita GDP, industrial specialization), finds that in the choice of the field of study institutional quality definitely matters.
2011
"In our paper we want to investigate factors affecting inequalities between HEIs performance because of their localization in more or less developed regions. We test the relationships existing between public policies, market investment and inequalities in HEIs performance, according to three hypotheses: 1. Good scientific performance is related to the wealth of the economic context; 2. Public policies aimed at reducing inequalities may rather increase them, as they do not intervene on the real causes of inequality; 3. Market forces are correlated with inequalities: i.e. disciplines with higher share of private investment and more variance of private investment are those with stronger qualitative inequalities."
Field of Study and Transition into a Stable Job: The Case of a University in Southern Italy
International Journal of Economics and Finance, 2012
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between a graduate's field of study and probability of finding a stable job in a labor market which is flexible as regards atypical jobs but highly protective regarding stable jobs. We apply a discrete-time hazard model, taking into account unobservable heterogeneity, to analyze the transition to a stable job of students who graduated from the University of Calabria in 2004, at one, three and five years distance. Main findings indicate that, after controlling for a wide range of characteristics, Engineering graduates have a higher probability of finding a stable job than graduates in Economics and Business followed by those with a degree in Sciences, Political Science, and Humanities. These results confirm that, even in a deprived area, investing in occupational specific human capital can be seen as an "insurance" against the risk of unemployment or an unstable job.
CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSPECTIVES OF HIGHLY SKILLED GRADUATES IN THE ITALIAN LABOUR MARKET
The central aim of this paper is to examine the relationships and implications of the education-employment nexus for recent university graduates in Italy by analysing the main elements that influence college graduates' employment probabilities three years after graduation. In addition, it provides a comparison among Italian macro-areas regarding graduates' region of residence in 2010. In this sample, continuous work experience during undergraduate studies, further postgraduate studies, older graduation ages and being married or divorced are characteristics that increase the probability of being employed compared to being unemployed three years after graduation. We used micro-data from a nationwide survey carried out by the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in 2011 on a representative sample of 33,696 graduates belonging to the 2007 cohort. The results confirmed the existence of significant differences in graduates' employment among Italian macro-areas. Graduates who were employed in the South in 2010 have shown a strong marked profile that is unfavorable to women and is distinguished by the oldest ages of graduates at the time of graduation and in post-graduation pursuits.