Early Occupational Outcomes of University Graduates in Italy. A ‘Centre–Periphery’ Geographical Approach

ABSTRACT The diversification of young people's life trajectories in Europe over the past 50 years has been significantly influenced by more uncertain social and economic conditions, marked by high youth unemployment and increasing job insecurity. In Italy, precariousness has propagated unevenly across regions and social strata, particularly affecting women and young people from the South, exacerbating existing territorial disparities. This study adopts a centre‐periphery approach to explore how the territorial features of Italian university graduates' places of origin impact their early occupational outcomes. Using individual‐level data from the Istat Survey on the Professional Paths of Italian Graduates (2015) and Eurostat's territorial typology indicators, we employ Heckman modelling to estimate the risk of non‐standard employment 4 years after graduation. Our findings reveal that graduates from marginal areas (predominantly rural, mountainous, or non‐metropolitan) face higher risks of non‐standard employment compared to those from central areas. No clear evidence links marginality in Southern areas to worse employment outcomes; instead, the highest internal territorial divide in terms of job insecurity is observed between central and marginal areas in Central Italy. Furthermore, we find that mobility during the school‐to‐work transition mitigates job insecurity risks, with movers from both central and marginal regions reporting better employment outcomes than stayers. This study contributes to the literature by adopting a new and underinvestigated geographical approach to the school‐to‐work transition, by highlighting the importance of territorial disparities in shaping young people's labour market trajectories and underscoring the complex interplay between territorial characteristics of places of origin and young people's employment prospects.