Higher educated, lower paid: the fixed-term wage penalty within highly educated workers in Italy

Abstract

Many studies have focused on the wage differentials: are temporary workers paid more or less than permanent ones? Worker’s education degree has been analysed only studying the wage differentials between education groups but focusing only on average differences between groups can miss some of the overall change in inequality. Wages can also vary within education categories: much of the overall increase in wage inequality could be due to an increase in this residual inequality within education groups. This contribution aims to examine within-group wage differentials (among recently Italian graduated workers), emphasizing the role of heterogeneities along the distribution of wages (high paid jobs and low paid jobs) and focusing on differentials due to the specific work arrangements.