Educational mismatches, routine biased technological change and unemployment: evidence from Italy

Abstract

This paper investigates the relation between educational mismatches and individual unemployment risk in Italy with a special focus on the role of technological change and labour demand characteristics. A novel dataset obtained merging two surveys (ICP and PLUS) is used to build different measures of educational mismatch and a measure of routine intensity on Italy: the Routine Task Index. The latter takes into account the effect of Routine Biased Technical Change (RBTC) in determining educational mismatches and unemployment risk. The results indicate that over−education is significantly associated with higher unemployment risk.