Assessing selection patterns and wage differentials of high-skilled migrants. Evidence from Italian graduates working abroad (original) (raw)
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The issue of high skilled migration is of increasing importance in the policy debates in a diverse set of countries, however, very little is know about the effects and the magnitude of high skill migration also because data on this topic are very scarce. The debate about the effect of immigration in Italy has been exclusively focused on the unskilled immigrants and their effect on the labour market, almost nothing is known about the skilled foreign workers. The phenomenon is not so important as in other countries (i.e. U.S., UK and Germany), however, the share of foreign workers among white collars and managers is constantly increasing in the last years; moreover, it is often declared by employers a shortage of skilled manual workers that can only be satisfied by foreign workers.
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.
The issue of high skilled migration is of increasing importance in the policy debates in a diverse set of countries, however, very little is know about the effects and the magnitude of high skill migration also because data on this topic are very scarce. The debate about the effect of immigration in Italy has been exclusively focused on the unskilled immigrants and their effect on the labour market, almost nothing is known about the skilled foreign workers. The phenomenon is not so important as in other countries (i.e. U.S., UK and Germany), however, the share of foreign workers among white collars and managers is constantly increasing in the last years; moreover, it is often declared by employers a shortage of skilled manual workers that can only be satisfied by foreign workers. As the Eurostat Labour Force Survey, one of the few dataset available to study this issue, cannot be used because foreign workers are underrepresented for southern European countries like Italy, we propose here an alternative method based to the salary paid to the worker. We use the distribution of individual wages, after controlling for observable individual and firm characteristics, to measure skill that is defined as unobservable "ability" for which the worker receives a wage premium over the main wage paid to workers with similar observable characteristics. Descriptive statistics on the characteristics of skilled immigrants confirm the shared knowledge that there is a demand for highly specialised manual workers which is satisfied by experienced male workers coming from non European countries. Moreover a simple test is carried out to investigate which are the motivation of mobility inside Europe, and the effect of European integration policy and international trade.
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