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AN OVERVIEW OF GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT

By Andrea Cammelli

The graduate employment survey conducted by the ALMALAUREA Consortium¹ is in its seventh edition. The survey aims to investigate the kinds of employment or further training undertaken by graduates in the first five year period following the attainment of an honours degree. This and all previous reports, as well as breakdown charts per university, and per university department, are available on the Internet: www.almalaurea.it.

The survey was conducted from September to November, 2004 and targeted graduates of the summer sessions of academic years 2003, 2001 and 1999².

This year the survey included 27 universities (including for the first time also Basilicata, Milan-IULM and Salerno)³. Fruitful co-operation among the universities (that bore part of the costs) and the contribution of the Italian Ministry for Education, Higher Education and Research meant that almost 56 thousand graduates were involved in the survey: 23,459 at one year after graduation; 18,074 after three years, and 14,391 at five years. The breadth of this study has provided the participating universities with detailed, per-department information.

Taken on an annual basis, the group survey represented one third of all Italian graduates, and hence gives a significant frame of reference for the entire Italian university system⁴. The composition of the population surveyed practically mirrors that of the general graduate population in Italy in terms of gender and degree course grouping. There is, however, an overrepresentation of the geographical north of the country and a lower representation of students obtaining a degree in universities of central and southern Italy.

Despite this, however, the main employment indicators generated by the ALMALAUREA survey are not significantly different from national statistical data. In 2001, the Italian National Statistics Board, ISTAT, reported employment rates for a representative sample of 1998 graduates (interviewed three years after gaining their degree) was only 1.8 percentage points lower than the ALMALAUREA rate for the same period and for the same group⁵.

The transition from the old to the new university system experienced by the first batch of post-reform graduates in 2003, together with the wide variety of training and study courses to be taken into account underline the special attention required when studying the distinctive features⁶ of these cohorts. It further alerted us to the need to pay special attention to the study or work experience of this group in the immediate post-degree period.

This is why the survey does not include the 3,733 graduates completing the 3-year bachelor course in the 2003 summer session. A web-based survey is, however, currently on-going to assess the study-work experience in the first post-degree year of the 645 subjects who come within our definition of “regular under-23s”, i.e. those completing the new 3-year bachelor degree in the regulation time, thereby excluding anyone who had switched from the old to the new system. Moreover, it should be remembered that the survey of the university careers of these students had already revealed how the excellent academic results achieved by this group had generated a propensity among a very high number of these students (84%) to pursue their studies after graduation.

The very high response rates testify to the widespread interest among graduates right from the outset of the survey, as well as the great care with which the survey was carried out⁷, and the constant updating of the databank⁸. In fact responses were received from 86 graduates out of 100 who had completed their studies the previous year and 76% of those who had finished 5 years earlier. These excellent results provided the basis for a highly reliable final report.

Representative estimates of Italian graduates. As already mentioned, although we have cast our net even wider, the graduates included in the ALMALAUREA employment survey do not as yet represent the entire Italian graduate population. Moreover as the number of universities involved in the survey grows each year, we have encountered comparability issues among the ALMALAUREA cohorts. To overcome these two problems and obtain figures that are representative of all Italian graduates, the results of the last five ALMALAUREA surveys have undergone statistical reproportioning⁹.

The Report shows a further slowing of the already sluggish labour market observed in previous years against the backdrop of a decidedly less favourable domestic and international economic period. New graduates have found it harder to enter the labour market. The employment rate of 2003 graduates fell slightly to 54.2 %, 0.7 percentage points less than the previous survey, and 2.7 percentage points less than two years earlier. This represents a further, albeit modest, fall in the employment rate one year after graduation, after a period of substantial stability (56.8% for 1999 graduates, 57.5% for those graduating in 2000, and 56.9% for the 2001 class). The signs of slowing in employment were evidenced also in the more detailed analyses that took into consideration the impact of the different composition per university of the different generations of graduates surveyed¹⁰.

Employment trends in the different universities. A complete analysis must take into consideration the different pace of regional markets and the different make-up of the graduate population for both university and residence. In occupational terms, the overall result of the individual universities is a function of their different composition by departments, the different relative weight of each of these departments and the different employment dynamic of the individual degree course. The overall drop in employment at one year from graduation, although less marked compared to the previous year, was seen in 14 of the 24 universities surveyed also the year prior to the year in question. This drop is therefore widespread, going well beyond southern Italy where graduate employment rates for most of the universities surveyed were already modest¹¹.

27 percent of all graduates continue in the employment they had before obtaining their degree. 27% of those graduates found to be employed one year after their degree have continued doing the job they were doing before graduation¹². This is especially true for graduates in law (43%), psychology (42), letters (37), teaching (37) and the political and social sciences (35). These are largely older students, especially employees of the public sector for whom a degree is not only a means of improving their professional skills but also opens the door to career advancement and job enhancement. In fact 40% of the group examined declared that this enhancement has taken place¹³.

Employment trends per degree course grouping. Employment varies widely at one year from graduation depending on the subject area. If exception is made for subjects like medicine, law and science where entry into the labour market is delayed on account of the further training required in order to exercise a profession, the highest employment rate was observed among engineering graduates (76.1%). Employment for all subject areas has slowed in a range varying from 1 to 7 percentage points compared to the previous year, the most modest fall being in the sciences and the highest in the arts, with the exception of the psychology group that from one of the lowest employment rates now showed a +3.8% rise.

Employment according to the definition of the ISTAT Labour Force survey. Like the ISTAT (Italian Statistics Board) survey of graduate employment, the ALMALAUREA survey does not consider as employed those graduates engaged in post-graduate training, even if paid, (e.g. residents, trainees, doctorate students). These groups are, however, considered as employed according to the definition used by ISTAT for its labour force surveys¹⁴. According to this less restrictive definition of “employed” person, the employment rate increases by more than 14 percentage points (68.5 as opposed to 54.2 percent).

By adopting the less restrictive definition, employment appears to be largely stable compared to the previous year (68.5% as against 68.6%). Under this definition, employment of newly qualified doctors increases by more than 51 percentage points, going from 31% to 82%. The increase for geo-biology graduates is more than 27 points, for science graduates almost 23 points, agriculture graduates approx. 19 points. The less restrictive definition makes employment among law graduates go from 27% to 46%.

The higher the qualifications, the higher the employment rate.

Although employment has fallen, with the labour market showing less dynamism rather than outright difficulty, employability of graduates remains better than other groups. In the whole period from 1995-2003, employment among young Italians aged 25 – 30 years grew overall by 7.1%. Growth by 10.3% among graduates, however, and 4.6% among secondary school diploma holders¹⁵. The decidedly unfavourable national and international economic period seems to have prevalently affected the finished product of the higher education university system in recent years. In fact, ISTAT reports a 0.3% increase in employment between 2002 and 2003 for the whole 25-34 year old population but at the same time shows how graduates of the same age have suffered a 1.3% drop in employment.

In other words, the employability advantage of graduates over secondary school leavers remains even if the gap has narrowed: from 7.4% in 2002, it fell to 5.5 in 2003.

The fall in employment was accompanied by a concomitant rise in the number of graduates seeking employment: 20.1% for 2001 graduates, 24% in the following year, and 25.8% for those graduating in 2003.

The real extent of unemployment. The number of people in search of employment does not, however, align exactly with the number of unemployed, the latter being defined by ISTAT’s Labour Force study as those who have actively sought employment during the four weeks previous to the interview and who are willing to start work in the two subsequent weeks¹⁶.

Thus defined the unemployment rate at one year is 19.1% among 2003 graduates, an increase against previous years (+0.2 percentage point from 1999 to 2000, +1.2 from 2000 to 2001, +1.5 from 2001 to 2002, +0.5 from 2002 to 2003), and confirms the indications of a sluggish labour market already signalled when employment was seen to remain stable and not show any signs of growth.

The same trend, albeit to a much lesser degree, is evidenced in the employment figures at three years from graduation: in fact 9.2% of 2001 graduates are unemployed (as against 7.9% of 2000 graduates and 6.2 of those qualifying in 1999).

Longitudinal studies carried out on the 1999 graduate class evidenced how unemployment has smoothed out to a more “physiological” rate with time, going from 15.7% at one year to 4.8% at five years from graduation.

Alongside the fall in the employment rate, a larger number of graduates was observed to be seeking employment at one year after qualification, with a fall, albeit only slight, in the number of graduates continuing some form of training. Post-graduate training nonetheless remained a very frequent option, involving 67% of employed graduates and 85% of graduates not in employment.

Post-graduate studies include training periods required to enrol in a professional register (28%), in-house company training (17%) and master courses (17%) (university or non-university institutes – these latter attracting more students than even specialisation schools (10%)).

While it is especially recent graduates that put off entry into the labour market, this was also seen among those qualifying in 2001, i.e. three years after gaining a degree. While employment rose among this latter group to 73% of those interviewed (16 percentage points more than the employment rate evidenced at one year after graduation), this nonetheless marked a fall of 2.1 percentage points compared to the similar survey carried out in 2003, and follows the identical drop in employment reported between 2002 and 2003. Despite this, however, if we exclude graduates from departments leading to extensive post-graduate specialisation, all the other study areas show decidedly higher than average employment rates (even if overall employment has fallen compared to past years), and some departments (architecture and engineering especially) have shown close to full employment rates.

The definition of “employed” person according to the Labour Force survey.

Here too, as already mentioned for employment figures of graduates at one year, the definition of “employed person” is of considerable relevance. If those engaged in paid training activities are considered among the employed, employment rates rise by a further 10 percentage points to an overall 82.7%. This swells the employment rates especially among the degree course study areas that lead to post-graduate specialisation, namely, medical studies where employment rises from 29.5% to 91.9%, the sciences – from 60.8 to 87.3%, and geo-biological studies – from 65.2 to 85%. Despite an increase of 6 percentage points if further training is considered employment, law graduates still remain the group with the lowest employment rate: 61.2%. Many factors may account for this, including the fact that graduates may have just completed a trainee or apprenticeship period.

At 5 years, 86% of all graduates have found employment, an increase of some 30 percentage points compared to employment rates at one year after qualification. This increase varies among the graduate group, with law graduates enjoying the highest rise (56 percentage points, going from 30 to 86%), followed by medical graduates (almost 34 percentage points more, from 22 to 55%), psychology graduates (+32 percentage points, from 55 to 87%) and geo-biology graduates (+33 percentage points, from 42 to 75%). We may talk of full employment at 5 years in the case of engineering graduates (96.2%), architecture (94.4%) and economics and statistics (91.8).

Extending the survey to five years after graduation. The empirical data emerging from the previous ALMALAUREA survey suggested extending the survey beyond 3 years. In fact, a survey confined to the three years following graduation tends to accentuate the similarities rather than the differences among the various graduate groups. Extending the time interval examined allows assessment of the real extent of the value added achieved by post-graduate training in helping graduates to land the most sought after jobs, and those most demanded by the country’s advanced economic sectors. It also provides a clearer picture of the external efficacy of the various degree study courses¹⁷.

Extending the survey to 5 years was carried out for the first time last year and allowed us to continue to explore two worlds that hitherto had been largely unknown quantities: the world of the law graduate, where employment went from 58.1% to 86.2% from the 3rd to the 5th year after graduation, and the medical group, where employment over the same period rose from 24.5% to 55.2%. At five years after graduation, the percentage of medical graduates continuing their specialisation remains fairly high at 31.9%. This is partly due to the lengthy course duration of the specialisation schools but also to the time it takes to be admitted to such schools.

When the Labour Force definition of employment is adopted, employment rises overall from 86 to 90% of graduates, with a rise of 37 percentage points among medical graduates whose overall employment reached 92%.

Comparing the ALMALAUREA figures with the data for 2000 for graduates of the 1995-2000¹⁸ period, the European Labour Force survey, carried out during a period of economic growth, reported some European countries (France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain) to have high and stable employment figures (95% approximately).

At one year after graduation, the employment rates among men and women differ significantly by more than 8 percentage point: 51% of women have found employment compared to 59% of men. This difference has tended to increase in recent years: in the 1999 graduate group, the difference was 2.7 percentage points. This confirms that during periods of economic growth the gender differential tends to close and that at the first signs of any employment difficulties it is women who bear the brunt. However, gender differences from an employment viewpoint become more evident in the medium to long period. Even the 1999 graduate group that showed a minimal difference evidenced an increasing gap to 7.5 percentage points at 3 years, and more than 7 percentage points at 5 years.

This male advantage is seen across the board of study courses and in every generation considered. 5 years after graduation, men enjoy higher employment rates in all disciplines except medicine, where, however, as has been seen, entry into the labour market has still largely to come about.

The situation in Italy is similar to many other European labour markets, especially France, Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Hungary. In fact, women are frequently the most disadvantaged group compared to their male colleagues, finding work later. Only a minimum percentage of high-level jobs in the private or public sector is occupied by women.

Women earn less than their male counterparts even if they occupy an equivalent professional position and have the same qualifications¹⁹.

Employment-wise, the north-south differences²⁰ in Italy have by and large remained unchanged in recent years, apparently not benefiting even from any periods of economic growth. At 1 year from graduation, this divide is still in excess of 21 percentage points. Among the 2003 graduates, for example, 65% of those employed reside in the north while 41% live in the south. And the gap is widening (24 percentage points).

As a result, the regional differences among those seeking employment are very high. This situation has tended to remain unchanged over the years and affected more than one third of all 2003 graduates residing in the south, and only 16 out of one hundred graduates living in the north.

This survey enabled in-depth assessment of the graduates of certain study courses recently benefiting from special legal provisions geared to increase enrolment²¹.

The particular nature of the courses analysed (with the exception of statistics), that for a large number of graduates entail post-graduate studies, suggested we adopt the ISTAT Labour Force definition of employment that, as already mentioned, considers those in paid post-graduate training as part of the working population. Applying this definition, employment rates for these 4 degree courses are good right from the first year after graduation. As a group, these 4 courses show higher employment than the rate for the whole graduate population considered (71.1% compared to 68.5%). At 5 years, employment rises further to 91.2% compared to 90.5% for the entire graduate group.

Modality of entry. The survey enabled us to examine how graduates in the period 1999-2000 entered the labour market in the 5 years following graduation²².

An in-depth study was carried out on the successful action taken (in the first year after completing their degree) by those graduates who had taken up their current job after finishing their degree course.

Personal initiative proved the most widespread action taken to find employment, a trend that was on the increase. 38 out of one hundred graduates in chemistry-pharmacology and “only” 31 out of one hundred in medicine and political science adopted this method.

The last two years has seen a new rise of recourse to intermediation by family and friends as a means of finding employment opportunities. This permitted 16 new graduates out of one hundred to find a job, and more specifically, 22 out of one hundred architects. This route was less evident in the economics-statistics and teaching groups (11%).

In the period under observation, in-house company training (both before and after graduation) played in increasingly important role, going from 6.2 to 10.7% over the period considered. With the exception for obvious reasons of psychology and medicine graduates, company training is currently much more widespread among political science and agriculture graduates (16% and 15% respectively).

Graduates were less likely to have been called by a company or to have answered a job advertisement: 7 and 6 graduates out of one hundred, compared to 10 and 8 respectively of the 1999 cohort.

Temporary job agencies on the other hand were seen to be gaining in importance, even if only very relatively. Currently, 4 graduates out of one hundred (against 3% in the 1999 group) find employment in this way. The figure is 13%, however, among language graduates.

Entering public competitions is understandably not very feasible during the first 12 months after graduation. This, together with the few public employment opportunities now on offer, has led to a fall in this method of seeking employment between 1999 and 2003 from 4.5 to 3.4%.

At five years after graduation, securing a job through public competition gained in importance to include an overall 10% of graduates. This channel was especially privileged by certain study areas (teaching, medicine, letters, law and sciences) and consequently, by women more than men (13 as against 7%). At 5 years, personal initiative remained the method most resorted to and proved successful for 30 employed graduated out of one hundred.

Again 5 years on, regional differences in the method of finding a job have accentuated. In particular, the greater economic difficulties in southern Italy, have led many graduates to opt for self-employment (25.3% in the south as against 11% in the north), and more southern graduates to enter public competitions (11.4% compared with 9.9% in the north), although this difference is not so marked.

Time of entry into the labour market. Time of entry into the labour market²³ was considered, for the group of graduates at 5 years from graduation, only in the case of those who at the time of obtaining their degree were not employed. The Cox model was used to estimate the curves for entry into the labour market that also took into account the effect of a set of explicative variables²⁴. This model highlighted that there are several elements affecting entry onto the labour market: military service obligations; degree study course; area of residence; work experience while undergraduate, and type of work sought at graduation (public/private)²⁵.

Those men who have not yet done their compulsory military service are temporarily removed from the labour market on graduation. This group in fact took an average of 10 months to find employment. If the military service effect is discounted, it was seen that men and women enter the labour market in very similar ways, after roughly the same amount of time (6 months).

The relative curves for the entry into the market of the various study areas makes interesting reading. Graduates of medicine, law and geo-biological sciences show much higher than average entry curves, due to longer time-to-entry (on account of their post-graduate residencies, traineeships etc). The former will not enter the labour market before 2 years after their degree, but will find a job within the first month from when they start looking. The latter will have to way “only” a year. In complete contrast, architects become very rapidly absorbed by the labour market as were engineers and language graduates, with survival curves that swiftly fell towards full employment.

The greatest difficulty was had by graduates living in southern Italy and the islands, as shown clearly by the graph that remained constantly above that of residents in the north. In the north graduates took 6 months to enter the market while in the south and islands it took 10 months.

Less appreciable but nonetheless significant – and probably related to a different strategy in the approach to the market – were the differences in terms of the type of work aspired to by graduates on obtaining their degree. In fact, time-to-entry was slightly higher for those who opted for the public sector at graduation (regardless of whether or not they actually succeeded) compared to those who opted for the private sector or those who expressed no preference (7 months as against 6 respectively).

Some of the graduates interviewed during the 7th survey, mainly those entering the market for the first time, were affected by the new labour-market provisions brought in under the so-called Biagi Reform²⁶. Although in force since October 2003, implementation has taken some time with the result that there has been a particularly complex transition period in which the difficulties of adopting the new, still incompletely defined measures were compounded by the fact that the old provisions, being no longer valid, could not provide a reference framework.

The data at 1 year after graduation would seem to confirm the complexity of this transition, and offer the opportunity for reflection. In fact, for the first time in the last 5 years, we did not observe the usual see-saw effect between permanent versus flexible or temporary employment²⁷, with one rising when the other falls and vice versa. The fact that the new “trainee employment contracts” replacing the former apprenticeship contract was not available for use until summer 2004 led to a halving of this type of employment (11.8% of 2002 graduates employed in this form of contract dropping to 6.5% of those graduating in 2003). This led to an increase in the amount of permanent and temporary employment, with an increase in the number of full-time permanent employment contracts among the permanent employment category, and an increase in the number of fixed-term employee contracts among the temporary category.

Job security was enjoyed by a considerably larger number of men (48.4% of those with jobs) than their female counterparts (35.5%). This difference is practically entirely attributable to the different levels of self-employment in the male and female groups, however. While 31% approximately of men and 28% of women have found regular permanent employment, 17% of these men and 8% of the women are in self employment. The situation is practically the same for trainee and apprenticeship contracts (9.1% for men, 4.2% for women), while the flexible employment patchwork involves more than half of all women in employment and 37.4% of men.

74% of the 1999 graduates interviewed were found to be in permanent employment, 33% more than when interviewed one year after graduation²⁸. The great leap forward is due in particular to the substantial increase in full-time permanent employment (up 20 percent points) to 49% of all employed graduates at 5 years. Self-employment went from 12% to 25%, an increase of 13 percentage points. During this 5-year period, a concomitant fall was observed in flexible forms of work (from 38.2% to 23.5%), trainee contracts in compliance with the new Biagi Act), which in fact tended to disappear, going from 15 to 1%, and unregulated employment (from 5% down to 1%).

At 5 years from graduation, the male-female divide in terms of permanent employment was even greater at around 15 percentage points, although once again virtually wholly attributable to the higher numbers of self-employed men. 5 years after qualifying, engineering, economics-statistics, architecture and law graduates showed the highest levels of permanent employment (nearly or over 80% of those employed). Among graduates in the geo-biology sciences, teaching and especially, letters, permanent employment rates vary between 62% and 44%.

From temporary jobs to job-security.

The growth trend in the number of graduates obtaining permanent employment in the period from the 1st to the 5th year following graduation makes interesting reading. The following is an overview of the major trends observed.

85% of the 1999 graduate cohort who at one year after graduation had already found a permanent job, continued to be regularly employed.

At 5 years post graduation, temporary work contracts still concern 28.3% of all cases while 60.5% had had their jobs converted to permanent employment contracts. However, at 5 years, 9 graduates out of a hundred had gone from an flexible job to unemployment.

The trainee and apprenticeship contracts had practically all been turned into full-time permanent work contracts (92.3% of cases) while 5% had been transformed into flexible employment.

A little more than half (50.3%) those who at one year from graduation were still not working had found a permanent job in the subsequent 5 year period. 24% of graduates entered the labour market, however, with flexible or temporary employment and 22% continued not to work even after 5 years. Rather that unemployment in the strictest sense, this figure seems more likely to represent graduates undergoing further training, especially doctors.

Some of those who one year after graduation had declared they were working unofficially, without a labour contract, had found permanent employment, while others were engaged in flexible employment (46.4 and 31.3% respectively)²⁹.

Geographical differences. Both at 1 and 5 years post-graduation, self-employment was found more frequently in the south, possibly in response to a difficult labour market situation.. 1 year after their degree, 10% of graduates working in the north and 14% working in the south declare they are self-employed. At 5 years, these figures have growth to around 21 and 33% respectively. For this reason, at 5 years the geographical differences in terms of rates of permanent employment are less than might be expected. 76% of the graduates with a job in the north of the country were in permanent employment as against 70% of their counterparts in the south. flexible employment also levels out between north and south (21 and 25% respectively).

Obviously the employment data at one year from graduation must be interpreted with some caution, especially since more than 27% of graduates in employment were continuing in jobs started before their degree. Extending the analysis to subsequent years is all the more necessary in light of the fact that the years immediately following graduation are marked not only by difficulties for new graduates to enter the labour market but increasingly by young graduates “trying out” jobs often with very little or no connection with their study subjects.

At one year, 35% of those with employment hold high to medium skilled jobs, 8% are executive employees (following ISTAT definitions), while teachers (not including university teachers) make up 7.6% of the whole group, a 1% rise on the graduates of 2002. The above positions, together with the executive/managerial jobs (2.5%) and other, less frequent positions, account for the bulk of subordinate employment (57.4% of all those with jobs). This was an increase compared with the previous year (56.3%).

Subordinate employment’s counterpart, self- or professional employment absorbed 5.8% of those with jobs: 4.6% in self-employment while 1.4% were entrepreneurs. As a whole, 13.1% of graduates have found a form of self-employment, the same percentage as the 2002 graduates interviewed a year after their degrees.

Alongside these two well defined employment categories, flexible employment absorbed approximately 23% of all those with jobs.

Already after just one year from graduation, men occupy higher level jobs than women. There were more men in the liberal professions (9.2 as against 3% women), in self-employment (5.9% as against 3.5%), and in executive/managerial positions (3.5% compared to 1.8%). By the same token, there are more women contract workers (26.6% as against 18.9% of the men), executive employees (9.2% as against 7.3%), teachers (11.7% as against 2.7%) and workers without any formal labour contract (6.6% as against 4.2%).

The amount of self employment increased over the 5 year period to absorb more than 25% of all those in employment. This is due almost exclusively to the increase in the liberal professions which rose to just under one fifth of all working graduates (18%). Contract work fell during the same period to slightly more than 10%.

In the subordinate-employment field, the various professional positions did not show any significant changes: the number of teachers increased (9.3%) as did executive/managers (9%) while there was a concomitant fall in the number of executive employees (5.8%)

During the five year period the gender bias in favour of men further increased especially in the executive/managerial and entrepreneurial groups. Of special, albeit not unexpected, note was the increasingly disproportionate number of women in teaching.

As mentioned, extending the survey out to 5 years allowed us to get a much clearer picture of how graduates move from university studies to employment. It also evidenced how, with time, jobs increasingly aligned with graduates’ degree subject.

The first piece of empirical evidence to emerge was that at 5 years from graduation, 3 out of 4 graduates worked in the services sector, a little less than one quarter is in industry and only 1.4% worked in agriculture.

Following up on this first break-down, we examined the economic sectors that at 5 years absorbed more than 70% of each degree course group.

At 5 years, there was a narrowing of the number of sectors taking 70% of all employed graduates coming from geo-biology, letters, science groups. This was especially the case for graduates hailing from law and linguistics. This finding evidenced the tendency for graduate employment at 5 years to show a better match with the area of university study. This narrowing of economic sector of employment did not concern teachers, doctors and architects, whose employment “slot” corresponded very consistently with university studies right from the very first year.

For graduates in agriculture, economics and statistics, political science, psychology and engineering, the range of occupational opportunities was much wider right from the first year, and remained this way even at 5 years after graduation.

The existence of two fundamentally different types of university training – specialist and generalist courses – begs the question of whether, and to what extent, this leads to greater employment opportunities or whether, in contrast, it obliges graduates to accept employment whatever the economic sector.

Italian graduates do not face rosy prospects from the earnings standpoint either, despite the more positive signs coming from the European and international context. Between 2000 and 2002, Italy ranked 23^rd for real growth of hourly wage rates, which at 0.1% is practically nil, especially when compared to concomitant growth in France (+2.5%) and the United Kingdom (+2.3%)³⁰.

12 months following graduation, graduates’ average monthly earnings do not exceed 1,000 Euro. There was a slight improvement compared with the previous year (average monthly earnings rose from 969 to 986 Euro, +1.7%), a rise that was not sufficient, however, to make good the substantial fall in earnings reported in the previous year (-4.5%)³¹.

At 3 years post-graduation, earnings were around 1,142 Euro, showing a slight downward trend over the years (1,167 Euro for the 2002 survey and 1,161 Euro in 2003).

1999 graduates saw their earnings increase consistently by 10% approximately 3 to 5 years following their degree (earnings went from 1,167 to 1,281 Euro). At 5 years, the 1999 graduates earned slightly more than the 1998 graduate cohort (1,249 Euro)³².

At 5 years, medical and engineering graduates are the highest earners. At the other end of the scale are linguistics, letters and especially, teaching graduates.

Gender differences. At one year from graduation, men continued to earn more than their female colleagues. The last two surveys reported the difference as around 25% (1,108 as against 883 Euro in the last survey; 1,089 against 864 Euro in 2003).

These differences were further accentuated at 3 years from graduation, with the gap widening to 27% (1,294 as against 1,015 Euro) and shrinking slightly at 5 years (1,443 compared to 1,143 Euro).

Gender bias was observed in all study areas. The survey of graduates at 5 years who had found full-time permanent employment only after completing their degrees, showed how men are routinely preferred over women.

At 5 years post-graduation, and with all other conditions being equal, men had an advantage over their female colleagues also in terms of professional activity³³: for an identical employment position, women earned less than their male counterparts. Figures ranged from 9% less for teachers to 19% less among the liberal professions. The only exception was women working without a bona fide contract. These proved to earn more than their male colleagues (791 compared to 735 Euro).

Gender differences were also seen within the state school teaching system. This difference would seem, however, to be at least partly attributable to the fact that the ALMALAUREA cohort contained a large number of female pre-school and primary school teachers.

Geographical differences. At 5 years from graduation, the net monthly earnings of graduates working in northern Italy (1,330 Euro) were observed to be consistently higher (not considering gender differences) than those in central Italy (1,271 Euro), and especially in southern Italy (1,132 Euro).

In every area of employment, women earned consistently less than their male colleagues. This was especially true in southern Italy where the difference was around 28%.

Working abroad. Graduates working abroad (approximately 2.5% of all those in employment) deserve a separate chapter. This segment of the graduate population was more difficult to contact than their home-based colleagues, especially in the case of non-Italian citizens attaining a degree at an Italian university. While this group had been the subject of periodical study, the current survey looked only at a few key aspects. At 5 years from graduation, earnings of graduates working abroad were more than 40% higher than their Italy-based counterparts (1,808 as against 1,281 Euro), over and above the different cost of living in the various countries. A greater balance between the earnings of men and women was also evidenced, with the gap narrowing to not more than 8.6%, one third that recorded for Italy. Although the data must be regarded prudentially on account of the small numbers involved, it is interesting to note that among the graduate categories with the highest number of graduates working abroad, engineers were reported to earn 30% more (1,992 compared to 1,540 Euro), political science graduates 28% more (1,707 compared to 1,334 Euro), and economics-statistics graduates in excess of 50% more (2,078 compared to 1,372 Euro).

Remuneration in the public and private sectors. Net salaries in the private sector were generally higher than those awarded by the public sector, with the gap rising to 7% at 5 years from graduation (1,304 compared to 1.216 Euro). The only exception to this was the figure at one year post-graduation (983 compared to 997 Euro), which, however, was probably caused by the substantial number of public-sector graduates who continued the employment they were in prior to earning their degree. The private-public sector salary gap closed, however, by 3 points compared to the 2003 figures.

While the private sector revealed a distinct preference for male employees, providing 7% better earnings compared to the public sector (1,364 as against 1,461 Euro), both private and public showed the same bias against women observed in the previous survey, with women never earning more than 1,143 Euro net a month. This figure was certainly affected by the large number of women in part-time employment. Part-time women graduates were better remunerated in the public sector (816 Euro in the public sector as against 749 in the private sector), while women graduates in full-time employment in the private sector earned more than their public sector counterparts (1,237 Euro from the private sector compared with 1,207 Euro in the public sector). The extent to which different working hours and different recourse to overtime in the two sectors affects the public-private earnings divide has still to be investigated.

Although usually offering more “generous” salaries, at 5 years the private sector seemed to offer consistently lower earnings than the public sector in southern Italy (1,115 Euro as against 1,172 Euro for public sector employment).

Earnings and branch of activity. The branches that at 5 years from graduation offer the best economic earnings are: chemicals (1,505 Euro); light engineering (1,493 Euro); health (1,481 Euro); electronics (1,479 Euro); banking (1,426 Euro); various manufacturing sectors³⁴ (1,426 Euro) and IT (1,408 Euro).

Earnings supplements. The earnings indicated in this Report are the lowest incomes received by graduates. At 5 years from graduation, 6 out of 10 graduates declared they received a 13^th month salary (and in some cases, a 14^th month); 4 out of 10 had meal vouchers or a special-price canteen service; a similar number have productivity bonuses. 28% of all graduates with a job were covered by sickness insurance or a supplementary health insurance scheme. 20% of those in employment received partial or total reimbursement for their travel expenses to and from work. A little less than 20% had a company-owned mobile telephone or the use of one. Provision of a company car or accommodation was less frequent. In sum, 3 out of 4 graduates in employment declared they received at least one type of perk or fringe benefit.

Men on average received more fringe benefits than women: some 23% of all men had at least 5 fringe benefits compared to 12% of women. Overall male income was higher as a result. More fringe benefits were enjoyed in companies in the tertiary sector, especially if located in the north of Italy.

Although at times obvious, the type of benefit received in the various employment categories makes interesting reading. There were more supplementary sources of income for those working as employees, especially if on a permanent or trainee (or first job) contract. There are fewer benefits for those on contract work or with any other type of flexible labour contract. For obvious reasons un-regulated, “grey-economy” jobs have not been considered.

The term efficacy of the degree obtained considers the two important aspects of usefulness and spendability of a university qualification on the labour market. This indicator is the result of combining answers to questions regarding the formal and substantive need for the qualification acquired in order to carry out the graduate’s current job and the degree to which the skills acquired at university were actually being used³⁵. Already at one year, overall efficacy was seen to be good. It was at least fairly efficacious in the view of 84% of the 2003 graduate cohort. After several years during which this index did not change, degree efficacy fell 2 percentage points compared to the previous declarations of the 2002 graduates, remaining at the same levels for those graduating in 2003.

Right from the outset, efficacy was especially high for graduates in chemistry and pharmacology (96.3%), medicine (97.6%), engineering (95.6%) and architecture (94.1%).

In subsequent years after graduation, albeit already significantly high from the first year, efficacy tended to increase a few percentage points. This was especially due to the greater appreciation accorded by graduates of general, and less specialist, subject areas³⁶. For the 1999 graduates, in fact, efficacy values increased 6 percentage points between the 1st and the 5th year: 85% of graduates considered their qualification fairly efficacious at 1 year from graduation while some 91% declared it efficacious at 5 years.

The quality of the employment obtained by graduates was assessed combining a series of elements: as well as the two components making up the efficacy index – the degree to which the qualification acquired was necessary and the level of usefulness of the knowledge acquired during university studies –, the nature of the labour contract and work satisfaction³⁷ were also included. The assessment of working conditions was particularly good already after just one year from graduation. This perceived high quality stayed unchanged during the last 5 years of survey, i.e. ranging between and mean value of 69 and 72 on a scale from 0-100. Quality of work improved moreover as time progresses, going from 70 at year one to 81 at year five for the 1999 generation.

The particular university studies completed proved all important to achieve quality employment and the differences between the various degree course groupings (doctors, psychologists, engineers, law graduates, chemists and pharmacologists, architects and agriculture graduates) tended to heighten with time, with the more specialist groups providing the most positive answers (92 for doctors and 85 for the other groups).

Already in the subsequent year following qualification, work satisfaction was fairly high - an average of 7.1 on a scale from 1-10. It increased in the 5 year period to exceed the good-to-excellent mark of 7.5.

All the various aspects of the working activity analysed proved to meet with graduate satisfaction already after 1 year from graduation. Particular satisfaction was expressed for aspects such as relations with colleagues, job location, independence/autonomy, professional skilling and involvement in the decision-making process. Less satisfaction was expressed, however, regarding job security, consistency with studies carried out, career and earnings prospects, and especially free time.

At 5 years post-graduation, all these work satisfaction components had higher satisfaction scores, with the exception of relations with work colleagues and place of work which were already at maximum levels. Free time availability continued to be the area of least satisfaction.

As a rule, women were less satisfied with their employment, in particular – both at 1 and 5 years – they proved decidedly less gratified by earnings and career prospects. The only exceptions where women demonstrated greater levels of satisfaction regarded the social usefulness of the job and the available free time.

Working in the public sector produced slightly higher job satisfaction levels: an average of 7.4 compared with 7.1 in the private sector at 1 year, and 7.7 and 7.6 in the public sector at 5 years. The aspects that carried most weight in the positive assessment given by public sector graduate employees, both at 1 and 5 years, were the social usefulness of the work, free time, meeting of the graduates’ own cultural interests, and the pertinence of the university studies completed. In contrast, in the private sector, job satisfaction was derived from the earnings and career prospects and, at 5 years after graduation, by the job security offered. The two sectors showed no appreciable differences as regards the other aspects comprising job satisfaction.

Nor are there particular differences in job satisfaction between graduates working in the north or south of Italy. Even if at 1 year from graduation northern workers declared they were slightly more satisfied than those in the south (7.3 compared to 7), in the course of the subsequent 5 years, assessments levelled off at the good-to-excellent mark of 7.5. Moreover, the differences between the various aspects were negligible. In particular, at 5 years from graduation, those working in the north were more satisfied as regards job security, while social usefulness and flexible working hours were the aspects which met with greatest satisfaction among the graduates working in the south.

Greater job satisfaction was recorded among full-time workers. An average of 7.4 compared with 6.5 among part-time workers at one year after graduation, and 7.7 as against 7 at 5 years. Part-time work was seen to be disadvantageous for earnings and career prospects, job security, job prestige and involvement in decision-making. This was countered by part-time graduates expressing greater satisfaction than full-time workers over free time, flexible working hours and social usefulness of their jobs.

Confirmation of the importance of the original family environment was clearly evidenced in the approach to the labour market. As shown in previous Reports, final degree mark and employment rates were not always directly related. At 1 year from graduation, the link was evidenced up the threshold of the highest marks obtained. Many new graduates with top marks (110 cum laude), employment fell to minimum levels, indicating that academic success gave rise to great employment expectations, with graduates prepared to wait for the right job opportunities to materialise. To this must be added favourable socio-economic backgrounds that make this possible. The lowest employment rate (44%) was seen among graduates from families in which both parents had degrees. The rate rose a few percentage points for graduates from families where just one parent had a degree. As many as 11 % more graduates from less wealthy families were in employment. This especially included graduates who immediately sought employment or who, probably having to relying exclusively on their own earnings, were already working at the time of graduation.

The numbers and characteristics of those who, even in the year immediately following qualification, continued some form of study and training confirmed the above considerations. They represented a very high number of graduates, more than 67% of the total. This poses complex issues for the whole university training system, especially where the average age of qualification in Italy is around 28! The fact remains, however, that the young (!) graduates who pursued post-graduate studies were culturally and socially advantaged as well as those who achieved the best performance. 79% of those with two graduate parents continued their studies (the same percentage as the previous year), as against 69.5% whose relatives have no academic qualifications at all (compared with 63% in the previous year)³⁸. 74% of those achieving top marks and 67% of those at the lower end of the grade scale (90/110 or less) continued some form of further education.

The findings confirmed a general scenario in which higher education has undoubtedly been made much more accessible, allowing a growing number of young people from less advantaged backgrounds to gain a university degree. In 2003, almost three quarters of all graduates were the first in their families to attain a degree. The findings also confirm a further lengthening of the time scales of higher education that allows graduates to achieve the most sought after goals, which for this very reason, remain within the grasp only of those who can afford it³⁹.

At 1 year from graduation, a little less than 17% of all graduates were participating in university or other types of master courses, a figure that was observed to level off after the substantial rise observed in previous surveys. The courses proposed by institutes other than universities were again the most numerous. 10% of graduates had completed or were still attending non-university master course, as against 7% who had chosen a university masters. These non-university courses were attended by a higher number of graduates not in employment.

Master courses were opted for by degree-holders from all study areas. Percentages ranged from 25% of graduates in psychology and the political and social sciences to 10% in the sciences, chemistry and pharmacology. An equal number of men and women were involved, although ratios differed for the different study areas. Master courses were attended by more graduates coming from advantaged backgrounds compared to young people from working class families (19.7% compared to 12.8%)⁴⁰.

Master courses did not provide graduates with any additional advantage in accessing the labour market, either in the first year after graduation – which is self-evident – but also subsequently. The findings indicate the need for further investigation to assess the different quality training offerings of these post-graduate courses.

University and other Master courses. This study looked at graduates interviewed 5 years after graduation who had completed 1 or more master courses. 806 graduates (7.4% of all those interviewed) had completed a university master course and 1,742 (16.1%) had attended other master offerings, including advanced training courses. A further 201 graduates, equally distributed between university and non-university institutes, declared that they were still attending a master course.

At 5 years from graduation, the higher number of university master attendees came from the political sciences groups (12.9%) and the economics and statistics disciplines (9.5%). The percentage was lower in the chemistry-pharmacology degree course (3.2%) and in medicine (2.4%).

Non-university master courses were especially attended by graduates in psychology (29.2%) and agriculture (21.7%), in contrast to chemistry-pharmacology (10.4%) and the sciences (7.4%).

From the employment standpoint, this further study did not reveal any significant advantages. 87.9% of graduates completing a university master course were in employed as against 87.7% of those who had completed some other form of post-graduate study. Both groups had employment rates that were only 1.5 points higher than graduates with no additional training.

Job security was seen to be lower in both of these graduate groups (62.7% and 69% for university and non-university master attendees respectively), compared to graduates with no post-graduate study (74.5).

Net monthly earnings were higher for those who had attended a university master course (+7%, or 93 Euro more compared to those who had not attended a course). Those who had taken another type of master course were observed to earn only 24 Euro more (+2%).

Work experience or alternating study-work during the period of study concerned only a small, but growing percentage of students who were part of the pre-reform university system (16% of all graduates)⁴¹. Work experience was prevalently had by graduates in teaching (68%) and agriculture (63%)⁴².

Having work experience as an undergraduate was associated, already in the 12 months following graduation with a significant employment advantage (+11 percentage points) over those that had not had a similar experience. This advantage was observed to be even stronger compared to the previous survey, when it was almost 6 points.

The same employment advantage – confirmed generally also within the various study area groups – was seen also for the 13% of graduates who had work or training experience after graduation. The differential remained at 11 percentage point and employment rates went from 65,8% for those who had completed work experience in a company to 54.3% for those who did not have any work experience. Here too, it should not be forgotten that this type of training activity was facilitated by a series of elements: type of studies, social network, the dynamism differential of the various labour market sectors, etc.

Post-graduate work experience was seen to be particularly widespread among newly qualified graduates in the political and social sciences, and economics-statistics groups (23% and 19% respectively). It was much less widespread among psychology, law graduates (both 6%) and architects (8%). Slightly more women availed themselves of work experience than men (13.5% and 12.3% respectively). More especially, it was graduates residing in northern rather than in southern Italy who used this system (16.4% compared with 10% respectively).

That work experience is a primary, and useful, instrument used by companies to select personnel was confirmed by the high number of graduates being given permanent employment following this training period (27%).

15% of graduates had had a period of study abroad during their undergraduate years. This was especially the case among the languages group (55%) but also the political and social sciences (26%) and architecture (15%). Regardless of the degree course, women were seen to be more willing to undertake a study period abroad: 16.2% of all women compared with 13.6% of male graduates.

At 1 year after qualifying, having had a study period abroad in general translated into a slight employment differential compared to those who had not had such an experience. In fact, 54.7% of those who had studied abroad had found a job against 53.4% of those who had not.

However, the greater employability of those with a study period abroad was not always confirmed by the analysis per study area. In the agriculture, architecture, physical education, engineering, medical, political-social sciences, psychology and sciences, graduates who had not gone away proved to have higher employment rates. Also surprising was the fact that the greater employment opportunities evidenced in the previous year by language graduates with a study period abroad,(62% compared with 52% for graduates with no such study period), proved significantly not the case revealed by this latest survey which showed 60% employment rates compared with 58% for those not going abroad. This result might reflect the difficulties of Italian industry to compete on international markets. This hypothesis would seem to be confirmed also by the employment trends of graduates who had studied abroad in the 3-5 year period, and would indicate that Italy’s production system has failed to appreciate the value added attained by a period of study abroad.

Studying abroad enhances the perception of the labour market as an international market and facilitates geographical mobility for reasons of work. In fact, 7% of those with a study period abroad found jobs abroad as against 1.4% of those who had stayed in Italy.

72% of all graduates were seen to have a good knowledge of at least one IT tool. Using the Internet was a particularly widespread ability (67% of all graduates⁴³) and word-processing (58%). Website development and data transmission network managing skills were, on the other hand, limited to only 8% of those interviewed.

While 1 graduate out of 4 had a good knowledge of at least 5 IT instruments, some 14% did not have a good knowledge of even one tool. A further 14% were conversant with 2 tools and 12% with 3 IT tools.

The degree course groupings seen to be the most IT literate (very good knowledge of at least 6 of the IT tools) were engineering, sciences, architecture and economics-statistics. Men had a wider IT base than women, a differential that was observed throughout all the study area groups.

The percentage of those in employment increased with the increase in the number of IT skills (from 46% among those without any IT knowledge, to 62% for those knowing at least 6 IT instruments). This trend was generally confirmed with the individual study area groups. Moreover good IT skills were generally associated – and further confirmed within the study areas – with greater degree efficacy and higher earnings.

Considering just those graduates who started working after attaining their degree, it was seen that IT skills were most prevalent among those with medium to high and executive-managerial employee status: knowledge of at least 6 IT tools in the case of 22% of the first group and 23% of the second category. The liberal professions and self-employed showed good IT skills (27 and 19% respectively).

As in the previous survey, numerous teachers were found to be completely unskilled in any IT tool, even if this lack of knowledge varied with the different teaching grades. Moreover, the low overall figure may be largely attributed to the contingent of (prevalently female) pre-school and primary school teachers.

More than one quarter of the graduates with employment at 1 year from graduation were continuing in the jobs they had held during their university years. At 5 years from graduation, this figure was still 11%). This job continuity was particularly evident in the public sector, concerning some 41% of all working graduates at 1 year from graduation (and 20% at 5 years). In the private sector, the same job was being continued at 1 year after qualification by 23%, and by 8% after 5 years.

Any meaningful analysis of the employment capacity of the public and private sector must, therefore, focus only on those graduates starting jobs after obtaining their degrees (as well exclude the self-employed contingent). However, the changes introduced this year with the implementation of the Biagi Reform must also be taken into account. The reform impacted the public and private sectors differently, abolishing contract work only in the private sector.

At 1 year from graduation, a little less than one fifth of those starting work after their degree was employed in the public sector. It follows that some 80% of working graduates were engaged in the private sector. At 5 years from qualification, these figures were 28% and 72% respectively.

Labour contracts differ widely in the two sectors. The trainee or first-job labour contract is more widespread in the private sector where it has been in use for many years, and concerns 11% of graduates at 1 year, as against 3% in the public sector.

Fixed-term contracts were a major characteristic of public sector employment, concerning 40% of all employed graduates at 1 year as against 25% of those in the private sector.

Collaboration contracts⁴⁴ were widely used in both sectors, but especially in the public sector where they covered 42% of the employment given to new graduates (compared to 25% of those in the private sector).

At 5 years from qualification, the public sector evidenced a three-fold increase in the amount of permanent employment contracts, going from 10 to 32%. Collaboration contracts fell around 24 percentage points, but at the same time a larger number of public-sector employed graduates were working under a fixed-term contract (40% at 1 year from graduation and 45% after 5 years). In the private sector, permanent employment was enjoyed by a higher percentage of graduates at 5 years (76% compared to 30% after 1 year). It follows that the other forms contractual employment were reduced.

Towards job security. Particular focus was given to the time scale and extent to which graduates moved to regular, permanent forms of employment. A longitudinal study of those in employment both at 1 and 5 years after graduation was carried out.

In this time interval, the private sector was seen to convert 81% of its fixed-term contracts into permanent job contracts. In the public sector, in addition to the impact of the freeze on hiring, permanent employment is obtained through the more lengthy system of public competitions, and concerned, as mentioned, 32% of all graduates in employment at 5 years from graduation. As a result, public sector conversion of fixed-term contracts to permanent jobs was half that of the private sector during the same time period.

The collaboration contract was the most prevalent form of temporary work contract, especially in the public sector (where hiring has been frozen). In fact, in the whole period examined, 7 out of 10 graduates employed in the public sector and 4 out of 10 in the private sector were seen to be working under this type of contract.

Aspirations at graduation and achievements after 5 years. Already at graduation, the aspiration of university leavers showed significant differences according to the different geographical area. As well as the social-cultural factors involved, these differences are probably due to the varying employment opportunities. Even if 2 out of 3 graduates had no preferences, it is also true that residents of southern Italy showed a preference for public sector employment (12.8% as against 8.4% in central and northern Italy), or for self-employment (11.1% compared to 8.8% in central Italy). A comparison of the preferences expressed at graduation and the achievements at 5 years paints a largely positive picture, albeit with several significant differences, closely connected with the aspirations expressed. In fact, of those expressing a desire for public sector employment, 51% of graduates living in southern Italy had achieved this goal, as against 46% in the north, and of those wanting to start their own business, 58% of graduates in the south and 52% of those in the north had done so⁴⁵. Finally, the desire to work in the private sector was realised by more northern (74%) than southern residents (64%).

The geographical spread of the universities participating in ALMALAUREA offers an interesting, albeit incomplete, picture of mobility within Italy for reasons of study.

Mobility for reasons of study. Mobility for reasons of study involved 1 quarter of all graduates. All other graduates had studied in the university of their region. For obvious reasons, mobility was more contained in the Italian islands, where almost 90% had completed their studies in their own region. Mobility was much higher among residents of the southern mainland, with 41% of graduates having studied in a different region from their native one. Graduates in north-west Italy proved less mobile than those in north-east Italy, with 60% having remained in their province of residence, as against 39% of those in north-east Italy. Residents in north-east Italy travelled on average 64 kilometres to reach their place of study, 16 more than those in north-west Italy.

Decidedly shorter distances (59 kilometres) had been travelled by graduates from the centre of Italy, a finding directly connected with the characteristics of the group analysed. This was in complete contrast, as might be expected, to the large distances travelled by graduates residing in the south and the islands who had lived 190 and 144 kilometres respectively from their place of study.

Mobility for reasons of work. The analysis was conducted considering residence, place where the degree was obtained and work location. Graduates “fixed” in one place, i.e. those who had studied and now worked where they originally lived, were 84% of the total number of working graduates. Here too, mobility differed with the different geographical areas. In the north, “fixed” graduates exceeded some 94%, in the centre of Italy, they were 86% and in the south 65%.

The very few northern residents who did make moves for reasons of work, did so almost exclusively to move abroad (2% of graduates in employment). Often these were people who had studied abroad during their university years (largely language graduates) and who were currently in permanent employment with large companies operating in the services sector. Their earnings, as already described, were seen to be higher than the average, as were evidently their language skills.

As already noted, 86% of working graduates from the centre of Italy could be considered “fixed”. The remainder showed mobility flows especially towards northern universities. However, on finishing their studies, these graduates had returned to work in their original area of residence (5.1%) with only 2% remaining in the north of Italy to take up work.

Among the graduates living in the south of Italy, 15% had gone to the north for reasons of study and/or work. For about half of these, transferring to a northern Italian university had probably facilitated the choice to remain there in order to get a job, while for others, the decision to go north had been taken only after attaining qualifications from a southern Italian university. A significant 9% of those graduates who had gone to the north or centre to study had decided subsequently to return to their place of residence where they had found work.

Students from the Italian regions of Abruzzo and Puglia who had chosen Bologna university constituted a substantial percentage of the northbound mobility flow. While average age at graduation of these students was higher than the norm, these graduates subsequently were seen to be employed in high quality jobs (73 on a scale from 0-100), often with a full-time permanent labour contract.

The flow of students to the centre of Italy came mainly from residents of Campania who had chosen Siena university. For these graduates, entry into the labour market, at least at 1 year from graduation, was still proving fairly difficult. Average market-entry times were generally higher than the average, and irregular, unofficial jobs were more frequently resorted to. Moreover, a consistent number of these graduates had decided to start up on their own.

The higher mobility of graduates from the south was confirmed by examining the distances between the province of residence and the province of the work place. While northern graduates worked an average of 34 km from home (34 in the north-west, 33 in the north-east), those in the centre lived 43 km from work, while those in the south were 214 km away.

As well as indicating the existence and extent of differences among the various occupational aspects investigated, the questionnaire for 2004 included several questions aimed to identify the opinion of graduates on equal opportunities offered men and women on the labour market.

The opinion of both the men and women interviewed became significant more negative with time. At 1 year from graduation, already 41 graduates out of 100 believed that equal opportunities did not exist among women and men on the Italian labour market; at 5 years, opinions were even more critical, negative views being held by half of the populated surveyed (+9 percentage point). Work experience proved to be a significant watershed for opinions on gender discrimination: all groups of graduates in employment (at 1, 3 and 5 years post graduation) evidenced higher numbers who believed equal opportunities did not exist (43.7% at 1 year from degree, 50.6% at 5 years). This would seem to indicate that those with work experience have witnessed disparity between the sexes in the work place, something that those not yet on the labour market had not been able to witness.

Men perceived the existence of “disparity of opportunity” much less than women. At 1 year from graduation, “only” 31 of men graduates did not think there really were equal opportunities, compared with 48% of women. With time, however, this awareness was observed to grow both among men as well as women (36% and 54% at 3 years, and 38% and 59% respectively at 5 years).

The feeling of the men-women divide was more keenly felt by residents of northern Italy (46.6% at 1 year, and 55.2% at 5). It was seen to fall in central Italy (41.6% and 48.7% respectively), and was even lower in the south (34.9% and 43.9%). This applied to the judgements expressed by both sexes, regardless of their occupational status.

Differences of opinion were considerable among the various degree course grouping, as were the differences of perception between men and women within each individual group. The perception of gender disparity was on the whole lower among medical graduates, even if the men-women divide in opinions was considerable (at 5 years from graduation 73.3% of men in this group considered equal opportunities a reality while only 44% of women in this medical group were of that opinion). This finding must be assessed, however, in light of the fact that very few medical graduates had had any working experience. The groups showing less gender divide in opinion were those groups made up prevalently of women (letters, teaching, languages). In contrast, the only 3 groups with a prevalence of men graduates (engineering, agriculture and economics-and-statistics), were those groups whose female members most felt “discrimination”. These were the groups in which the opinions of men and women differed most.

Disparity of treatment was most keenly felt by those working in the private sector. At 5 years after qualification, 63.2% of women employed in the private sector considered that discrimination existed, as against 54.3% of women with public sector employment. This difference of opinion was also seen, albeit less markedly, among men.

As earnings grow, both sexes revealed a greater perception of disparity between women and men, something that was seen in all 3 cohorts surveyed. In particular, at 5 years from qualification, 57.4% of women with low earnings and 65.6% of women with high earnings considered that equal opportunities did not exist. For the same cohorts, 24.7% and 40.4% respectively were of the same opinion.

The area of work where women felt they had been most discriminated against (on the basis of their own personal experience) was in career possibilities: 18.5% of women graduates at 5 years, either in employment or having had some work experience subsequent to getting a degree, declared that they had had problems in this regard. 16.8% declared they had felt discriminated against in the way they were considered by male colleagues; 15.7% felt this at the time of being hired or when they started up a business, and 13% felt discriminated against in terms of remuneration. 11.5% of women declared they had be subjected to other kinds of discrimination.

At 5 years from graduation, the public administration was the sector that enjoyed the highest perception of offering equal opportunities. This perception was, however, very low in women working in the light engineering, precision mechanics and manufacturing industries, traditionally male precincts.

Like the ISTAT survey on graduate entry into the labour market, most of our tables presented consider “in employment” those graduates who declared they were in gainful employment, provided this did not entail a training activity (training period, apprenticeship, PhD course, residency). In other words, receiving an income is only one of the requirements to be met to be considered a graduate with a job.

Only in a few tables have we used the ISTAT “employment rate” of the Labour Force Report. The table is accompanied by a specific note to this regard. ISTAT’s “less restrictive” approach considers as employed all those who declare they are employed in some activity, even if this entails trainee or un-regulated, “grey economy” work, provided they receive remuneration⁴⁷.

Unemployment rates were calculated following the ISTAT approach used in its quarterly survey of the Labour Force report, and valid up to the survey of 2003. This was subsequently altered to comply with Regulation n. 577/98 of the Council of the European Union. The ALMALAUREA survey referred to the definition applied by ISTAT up to its survey of 2003.

The unemployment rate was obtained from the ratio between those seeking employment and those in employment. Those seeking employment (the unemployed) are all those who declared they were not in any job, were seeking employment, and had made at least one “active” effort to find employment in the 4 weeks prior to the interview, and were available immediately (within 2 weeks) to start work if a post were offered. The unemployed also include those who declared they had found a job but would be starting work in the future.

The efficacy of a university degree has the advantage of summing two important aspects: the usefulness and the spendability of a university degree on the labour market. This index derives from combining questions regarding the level of use of the knowledge acquiring during the graduates’ university studies and the formal and substantive need for the qualification acquired in order to carry out their current job.

5 levels of efficacy were identified:

• very efficacious: in the view of employed graduates their degree was either required by law or a practical necessity, and they made great use of the knowledge acquired at university;

• efficacious: employed graduates had a degree that was not required by law but was nonetheless useful, and they used their university-acquired knowledge widely, or while a degree was required by law, they made only some use of the knowledge acquired at university;

• fairly efficacious: employed graduates had a degree that was not required by law but which was de facto necessary or useful, but they made only slight use of their university-acquired knowledge;

• not very efficacious: employed graduates had a degree that was not required by law nor did it have any bearing on their job, and they made little use of their university-acquired knowledge; or their degree was not required by law but was useful even if they made absolutely no use of their university training;

• not efficacious: employed graduates had a degree not required by law, nor was their qualification in any way useful to their job, and they made absolutely no use of their university-acquired knowledge.

These categories are mutually exclusive although not exhaustive and do not include the non-responders or the interviewees whose answers did not fit into one of these predefined categories.

The Quality of work index was calculated on the basis of all graduates in employment and combined 4 variables relating to different employment aspects: the work contract, the degree to which university-acquired knowledge was used, the formal and substantial necessity for the degree qualification (these latter also go to calculating the efficacy index), and job satisfaction with regard to a series of aspects (earnings prospects, career prospects, professional skilling (enhancement), independence and autonomy at work, free time).

Given the diverse nature of the elements considered (several of which “hard” objective data such as the type of labour contract, while others were subjective and linked to the individual graduate’s perception, such as job satisfaction) the 4 variables were given different “weights”. The reliability and correctness of this weighting system was assessed with the aid of appropriate statistical tools. The highest weight (4) was attributed to the labour contract, followed by use of the knowledge acquired at university and the requirement of a degree qualification (weighted 3), and job satisfaction (weighted 2). The index varied on a scale from 0-100.

Graduates were attributed a social class according to the scheme proposed by A. Cobalti and A. Schizzerotto⁴⁸. Social class, defined by comparing the socio-economic position of the father as well as the mother of the graduate and taking the highest position of the two (“dominance” principle). Socio-economic status can be divided into upper class, white collars, lower middle class and working class. Upper class is considered at the top of the scale while working class is at the bottom. White collars and lower middle class are considered as more or less on the same level, none with supremacy over the other. Both are however considered above working class and are below upper class. Graduates who have one parent in the lower middle class and the other among white collars, were allocated to the socio-economic status of the father (in this situation it would not be possible to choose between white collars and the lower middle class according to the dominance principle).

The socio-economic status of each parent is a function of the last profession held and qualification:

• entrepreneurs, the liberal professions and executives were allocated to the upper class;

• clerical employees or managerial staff with a school diploma beyond compulsory schooling were allocated to the lower middle;

• clerical employees with compulsory schooling certificate, manual and domestic workers were classified as working class.

Graduates whose mothers were housewives were put in the socio-economic class of their fathers.

Cox’s regression model, also known as proportional hazard regression analysis, follows the approach of models analysing survival data in order to explore simultaneously the effect of several variables applicable to expected survival time, and to compare survival distributions among the different population subsets.

In our analysis, Cox’s regression model was used to the extent that the function of survival in the condition of unemployment which characterises each segment i, S_i(t), is impacted by a certain number of explicative variables.

Formally the model is expressed with the function:

where S_i(t) indicates the survival function characterising segment i, or the probability of not being in employment after t months subsequent to gaining a degree; xij is the value assumed by the variable Xj with regard to segment i; βj indicates the parameter that expresses the effect exerted by the variable Xj on the survival function; and S₀(t) indicates the function of baseline survival, i.e. relative to the segment whereby xij = 0 for each j=1, …,J.

The model was applied to the whole cohort of 1999 graduates not in employment at the time of gaining their degrees. The variables potentially able to determine the different modality of entry into the labour market, and hence considered in the model, are: the degree course grouping; gender (and for men, national military service status); social class of parents; geographical residence at qualification; any work experience during their study period; type of work aspired to at the time of qualification. Of these, only the social class of the parents did not prove significant. As a consequence, it was not included in the model.

The B parameters estimated by the model (cf. Table 1) give the effect exerted by the individual modality considered with respect to the reference class of the explicative variable (or level of reference, indicated in bold in the table). As a rule, only those modalities whose levels of significance given in the 3^rd column of the table were lower than 0.05 were assessed. If the B parameter estimated is positive, the probability of remaining in the condition of unemployment falls with respect to that of the reference class. In contrast, if the parameter is negative, then the likelihood of remaining in a condition of unemployment increases.

Table 1 – Cox’s model used to estimate the time taken to enter the labour market

	B	p-value of signific.
Military service (Women=0)		0,000
Military service before degree	0,072	0,008
Military service after degree	-0,289	0,000
No answer	0,161	0,781
Group (Scientific=0)		0,000
Agriculture	-0,117	0,274
Architecture	0,361	0,000
Chemistry-Pharmacology	-0,180	0,019
Economics-statistics	0,130	0,039
Geo-biology	-0,579	0,000
Law	-0,549	0,000
Engineering	0,355	0,000
Teaching	0,212	0,039
letters	-0,090	0,191
Language	0,233	0,003
Medicine	-1,138	0,000
Political-social	0,082	0,253
Psychology	-0,368	0,000
Residence at degree (Nord=0)		0,000
Centre	-0,050	0,172
South and Islands	-0,388	0,000
Outside Italy	-0,042	0,840
Not available	0,314	0,754
Work during studies (No work=0)		0,000
Has worked	0,187	0,000
No answer	-0,108	0,036
Sector preferred at degree (No preference=0)		0,001
Public sect. Employm.	-0,103	0,015
Private sect. Employm.	0,096	0,003
Self-employment	0,027	0,529
No answer	0,022	0,611

It should be underlined that the model presented here has been applied only and exclusively for descriptive purposes, with no attempt to put forward or test any complex hypotheses or specifications to explain the duration of the unemployment period.

The following is the classification adopted by the Italian Statistics Board (ISTAT) of the degree courses available at Italian universities.

Agriculture: Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture; Veterinary Medicine; Agrarian Sciences; Tropical and Subtropical Agrarian Sciences; Animal Husbandry; Food Preparation Sciences; Agricultural Sciences and Technologies; Food Sciences and Technologies; Animal Husbandry Sciences and Technologies; Forestry Sciences; Forestry and Environment Sciences.

Architecture: Architecture; Land-Use and Urban Planning; Land-Use, Urban and Environmental Planning; History and Conservation of the Architectural and Environmental Heritage.

Chemistry and Pharmacology: Chemistry; Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology; Industrial Chemistry; Pharmacology; Biotechnologies.

Economics and Statistics: Economic and Social Disciplines; Environmental Economics; Business Economics; Banking Economics; Banking, Financial and Insurances Economics; International Trade and Currency Market Economics; Economics of Tourism; Economics of Public Administrations and International Institutions; Economics of Institutions and Financial Markets; Economics and Commerce; Economics and Finance; Maritime and Transportation Economics; Political Economics, Marketing; Banking and Insurance; Economics; Economics and Banking; Economics and Social Sciences; Statistics, Demographics and Social Sciences; Statistics and demographics; Statistics and Actuarial Sciences; Statistics and Economics; Statistics and Business IT; Tourism.

Physical Education: Motor Science.

Geo-biology: Biotechnologies; Medical Biotechnologies; Environmental Sciences; Biology; Geology; Natural Sciences.

Law: Law; Administrative Sciences.

Engineering: Aerospace Engineering; Astronaut Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical Engineering; Civil Engineering; Civil Eng. for Soil Protection and Land-Use Planning; Materials Eng.; Industrial Technologies Eng.; Construction Eng.; Electrical Eng.; Electronic Eng.; Electro-technical Eng.; Forestry Eng.; Business Eng.; IT Eng.; Mechanical Eng.; Mining Eng.; Naval Eng.; Naval and Mechanical Eng.; Nuclear Eng.; Eng. for Environment and Land-Use Planning; Civil Transportation Eng.

Teaching: Pedagogy; Education Sciences; Primary Schooling Sciences.

Letters: Cultural Heritage Conservation; The Arts, Music and the Performing Arts; Philosophy; Geography; Letters; Literature; History; Cultural Sciences.

Languages: Interpretation; European Languages and Culture; Foreign Languages and Literature; European Foreign Languages and Literature; Modern Foreign Languages and Literature; Translation; Translation and Interpretation; Sciences and Techniques of Interculturality.

Medicine: Medicine and Surgery; Dentistry and Dental Prosthetics; Health Provision and Planning Sciences.

Political and Social Sciences: Public Relation; Communication Sciences; International and Diplomatic Sciences; Political Sciences; Social Services; sociology; Community Political Sciences.

Psychology: Psychology.

Sciences: Astronomy ; Physics ; Information Technology ; Mathematics ; Materials Sciences ; Information Sciences.

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