SOC(HE)-Italy: A Classification for Graduate Occupations

Abstract

This paper presents an application to the Italian labour force of the British SOC(HE)2010 classification for graduate occupations, thereby creating a statistical tool for exploration of the Italian graduate labour market. In order to achieve this goal, the classification is replicated, using methodology that differs slightly to take account of differences in existing Italian data, to construct SOC(HE)-Italy. This classification allocates each of the official 800Italian occupational categories to four groups distinguishing between 'graduate' and 'non-graduate' groups on the basis of their relative levels of knowledge and skills requirements. It is then validated using the Rilevazione Continua sulle Forze di Lavoro (RCFL ISTAT) data and the AlmaLaurea (AL) data and used to analyze changes in the Italian occupational structure that occurred before and after the financial crisis that took place in 2008. We also compare the Italian structural trends in the graduate labour market with similar trends in Britain. This analysis reveals that the decrease in the utilization of highly qualified labour in the Italian labour market started before the beginning of the ongoing recession, which contradicts the findings of analyses reported in earlier literature. JEL classification: I2, J2

Marketing Graduate Employability

“…The Destination of Leavers of Higher Education (DLHE) survey has recently been replaced with a Graduate Outcomes Survey that records the number of graduates in employment (crudely defined) 15 months after graduation. Similar measures of employment outcomes are used in other contexts including in Australia, which employs a Graduate Outcomes Survey four months after graduation, and in Italy (Cattani et al, 2014), where students are surveyed by their institution at the point of graduation.…”

Against the Grain? Assessing Graduate Labour Market Trends in Germany Through a Task-Based Indicator of Graduate Jobs

“…While having theoretical appeal, the approach relies on restrictive assumptions about the organisation of labour markets that may not hold in practice. Closest to the here applied concept of graduate job are classifications that draw on expert knowledge to cluster occupations based on typical work tasks (Elias and Purcell 2013 for the UK; Cattani et al 2014 for Italy). However, such expert-based systems are somewhat lacking in transparency, are difficult to replicate and can generally only be updated at great expenses.…”

Assessing the Incidence and Wage Effects of Overeducation Among Italian Graduates Using a New Measure for Educational Requirements

“…4 The difficulty index varies in each group of variables between 1 and 100 and is calculated as the average score of variables selected case by case for each job title. The selection of variables in each group however is not subjective and it is based on the standard deviation rule: for each job title Cattani et al (2014) selected those variables exceeding the mean of all variables in the grouping (experts, strategists or communicators) incremented by the value of the standard deviation. Knowledge, skills and competences selected in this way are the ones needed to carry out the most characterizing tasks of the profession.…”

“…In this paper we contribute to this debate by introducing a new JA measure based on the Italian Standard Occupational Classification (SOC(HE) built by Cattani et al (2014) and applying it to Italian graduates interviewed after five years from the degree. Our purpose is to determine the incidence, determinants and impact on earnings of overeducation by using this new JA measure and iterate the same analysis utilizing an alternative WA measure in order to compare the two different outcomes.…”