Simona Lorena Comi, Mara Grasseni and Federica Origo
The purpose of this paper is to use the two-way fixed effect (TWFE) methodology to estimate the impact of the reform, exploiting its staggered implementation across regions. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use the two-way fixed effect (TWFE) methodology to estimate the impact of the reform, exploiting its staggered implementation across regions. The analysis is restricted to graduates from the short vocational track before and after the reform.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper studies the impact on the length of school-to-work transition of a reform that extended from two to three years the short vocational track in Italy in the early 2000s.
Findings
The study finds that the reform had a positive impact and reduced school-to-work transition by around five months (a 24% reduction). Moreover, the new short vocational track proved to be extremely effective for migrants and females, whose school-to-work transition was reduced by 1.4 years and 0.9 years, respectively. In implementing the new short vocational track, some regions adopted a quasi-market organization in which private training institutions competed with public schools. This model proved to be more effective in shortening school-to-work transitions, in particular for migrants.
Originality/value
This study makes an important contribution to the literature on the labor-market effect of vocational education by showing that lengthening the short vocational track, and changing the overall content of curricula, can speed up school-to-work transition.
Details
Keywords
Federica Origo and Laura Pagani
The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether various flexible work arrangements produce different effects on alternative measures of job satisfaction in Europe. To…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether various flexible work arrangements produce different effects on alternative measures of job satisfaction in Europe. To test the existence of heterogeneity in the impact of flexibility on job satisfaction, the paper verifies whether this relation varies with workers' characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical evidence is based on a representative sample of European employees taken from a specific wave of the Eurobarometer survey. An ordered probit estimator is used to get the relevant estimates and endogeneity problems have been addressed by exploiting the richness of the data‐set in terms of information on workers' attitude toward work and life (used as proxies of unobserved time‐invariant factors, which are the primary source of endogeneity).
Findings
A positive link was found between functional flexibility and job satisfaction and either no effect or a negative impact of quantitative flexibility. The positive impact of functional flexibility is greater when considering satisfaction for intrinsic aspects of the job. Estimates by workers' characteristics highlight interesting differences by age, skill and country of residence.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation is the cross‐sectional nature of the data, but there was no awareness of any panel data containing information on all the relevant variables of this analysis.
Originality/value
With respect to the existing literature, the paper simultaneously considers different types of flexibility and estimates their effect on different facets of job satisfaction, also considering the impact of flexibility on job satisfaction by workers' characteristics. This evidence may be useful to firms in designing more tailored flexibility packages.