The job condition of academic graduates: a joint longitudinal analysis of AlmaLaurea and Mandatory Notices of the Ministry of Labour

Education is one of the fundamental factors of development [1]. The evaluation of students’ occupational status at different times -from six months to many years after graduation- is important to assess the university system’s performance and contribute to its progressive improvement [2,3]. In the twenty-first century the Italian university system has experienced an expansion of enrolments benefiting from the Bologna Process. The expansion of higher education in Italy reduced the selectivity of courses increasing the heterogeneity of graduates. Thus, an academic degree may no longer be sufficient to access the most prestigious and remunerative occupational positions [9].In this perspective, the growth of the education system has led to an oversupply of graduates, especially in some fields, worsening the employment and working conditions of degree holders [14,5]. Relying of various sources of data, i.e. AlmaLaurea, the Mandatory Notices of the Ministry of Labour datasets and the administrative database of University of Florence (UNIFI) students, this work aims to provide an overview of UNIFI graduates’ employment and labour market participation. A preliminary analysis is provided.