La Meglio Gioventù: Earnings Gaps across Generations and Skills in Italy

Paolo Naticchioni, Michele Raitano and Claudia Vittori

No 8140, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper documents the evolution of the experience-earnings profiles of private employees in Italy over the first six years of working career across three birth cohorts (1965-1969, 1970- 1974, 1975-1979). We explore the average trends and disentangle how the patterns vary according to individual skills, defined in terms of both educational levels and percentiles of the unconditional earnings distribution. Unlike previous studies, and in contrast with the expectations prompted by the skill-biased literature, our results surprisingly show that the Italian "best of youth", i.e. the best workers of the most recent cohorts (the high skilled), have suffered, compared to the previous cohorts, an earnings penalty much more severe than that experienced by unskilled workers. This finding also raises questions about the effectiveness of the European Employment Strategy, which repeatedly stressed the importance of human capital and technological knowledge as main drivers for European performance.

Keywords: Italy; earnings; education; cohorts; youth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-eur, nep-hrm and nep-knm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Economia Politica, 2016, 33 (2), 233-264

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Journal Article: La Meglio Gioventù: earnings gaps across generations and skills in Italy (2016)
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