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Earnings inequality and workers’ skills in Italy

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  • Franzini, Maurizio
  • Raitano, Michele

Abstract

The increasing trend of earnings inequality observed in many countries is usually ascribed to a higher premium to skills, commonly proxied by education. Focusing on Italy, a country characterized by a steep rise in earnings inequality since the ‘90 s, we aim at verifying whether this trend is attributable to education. Making use of administrative data about private employees, we carry out Theil decompositions and estimate wage equations to investigate how much of this trend is linked with education and other observable worker’s and firm’s characteristics. We find that the rise in earnings inequality is explained by the “within education” component, rejecting the idea that it is due to a higher premium for the high-skilled. Furthermore, controlling for workers’ and firms’ characteristics in wage regressions – also including workers’ literacy and numeracy recorded in OCED-PIAAC – we find that level and trend of earnings inequality are not explained by these characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Franzini, Maurizio & Raitano, Michele, 2019. "Earnings inequality and workers’ skills in Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 215-224.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:51:y:2019:i:c:p:215-224
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2019.09.004
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    Cited by:

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    2. Fana, Marta & Giangregorio, Luca, 2024. "The role of tasks, contractual arrangements, and job composition in explaining the dynamics of wage inequality: Evidence from France," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. María-José Calderón-Milán & Beatriz Calderón-Milán & Virginia Barba-Sánchez, 2020. "Labour Inclusion of People with Disabilities: What Role Do the Social and Solidarity Economy Entities Play?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Francesco Devicienti & Bernardo Fanfani, 2025. "Firms' margins of adjustment to wage growth: the case of Italian collective bargaining," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 92(365), pages 107-149, January.
    5. Esposito, Piero & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2022. "Educational mismatch and labour market transitions in Italy: Is there an unemployment trap?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 138-155.
    6. Alessio Tomelleri, 2021. "Temporary jobs and increasing inequality for recent cohorts in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(4), pages 500-537, December.
    7. Bavaro, Michele & Raitano, Michele, 2024. "Is working enough to escape poverty? Evidence on low-paid workers in Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 495-511.
    8. Giangregorio Luca & Fana Marta, 2021. "The structure of the labour market and wage inequality using RIF-OLS: the Italian case," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021-11, Joint Research Centre.
    9. Silvia Leoni, 2022. "An Agent-Based Model for Tertiary Educational Choices in Italy," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 63(5), pages 797-824, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Earnings inequality; Education; Skills; Theil decomposition; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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