Postgraduate education and job mismatch in Italy: Does migration help?

Abstract

Doctoral graduates represent the pinnacle of education. While the importance of increasing their number has been recognised by the Italian government and there has been a huge increase in the number of publicly funded PhD scholarships, doctoral graduates still struggle in the labour market to find employment commensurate with their skills and competencies. It is against this backdrop that the role of migration becomes crucial. Exploiting Italian microdata at the census level, this study aims to investigate how human capital migration, occurring at different ‘times’ of individual's life and across different regions, could mitigate the potential education–job mismatch, which is measured here from a multidimensional perspective by looking at overeducation, overskilling and satisfaction. Our findings reveal some positive effects of migration on reducing this mismatch. Moreover, the study highlights two relevant gaps, the first between domestic and foreign workers and the second between genders.

The Dynamics of Fund Absorption: Evaluating the Efficacy of EU Structural Funds in Mitigating Regional Inequalities—Calabrian Case

“…Migration trends among university graduates reveal that the majority remain in their region of study, though those who migrate for education are more likely to relocate postgraduation (Ciriaci 2014). Factors influencing migration include university reputation, labor market accessibility (Aronica et al 2023;Dotti et al 2013), and local economic conditions (Hermannsson et al 2019). Lagging regions often become net exporters of students and fail to attract those from other areas.…”

“…Since the 1990s, a resurgence in emigration has been noted, predominantly among those with secondary and higher education, propelled by disparate economic development between the southern regions and the more affluent central and northern Italy (Etzo 2011;Odoardi and Muratore 2019). Today's migratory flows are characterized by the internal and international relocation of individuals seeking superior educational and professional opportunities, contributing to a self-perpetuating cycle of territorial dualism and the enrichment of foreign labor markets at the expense of local development (Aronica et al 2023;Basile et al 2019).…”

“…Nevertheless, these experiences do not inherently counteract the inequalities between peripheral and core regions. The propensity for international migration among the higher-skilled cohort, including those trained with regional and European funding, remains pronounced (Aronica et al 2023).…”