Formazione e mercato del lavoro: italiani e stranieri a confronto

The theoretical framework of immigrant adjustment in the labour market of the host country is based on the international transferability of human capital (Chiswick, 1986; Duleep and Regets 1997). The extent of human capital transferability between two countries depends to a great extent on the type of skills of individual and on the migration motive (income maximisation problem or political situation in their home country, ethnic enclaves, etc.). On the other hand, the economic theory of assimilation into the host country labour market predicts that assimilation is mainly influenced by the characteristics of the home country, the migration motive and the expected migration duration (Bauer, Lofstrom and Zimmermann 2000). However important differences in the immigrants’ behaviour are observed when the immigrant population is stratified by the educational level. The analysis is clearly very complex because the variables intervening in producing a satisfying level of integration in the labour market are many with cumulative or combined effects. It is necessary to take into account both individual and context socio-economic characteristics. To understand the role played by the educational level, we proceed in our comparative study selecting two subsamples: foreign workers and Italian workers. We developed a broad descriptive analysis. However, in order to confirm (or not) our results and to analyse the possible correlation between the selected characteristics and the employment status, two logit models and X2 tests were performed focusing our attention on the educational level of the two subsamples. For our analysis, we decided to use the micro data of the Indagine continua Forze di Lavoro (Labour Force Survey) conducted on a regular base by ISTAT. Concerning the Italian case, we observed several interesting results revealing significant both similarities and differences between the two observed groups