Discrimination in the university-to-work transition in Italy: a correspondence study

In this article, the authors highlight the factors of a graduate’s resume that are most relevant in the initial selection of candidates for a job vacancy. Data collection consists of a correspondence study, with a sample of fictitious resumes purposely created for a number of job openings in the Veneto region of Italy. For every vacant position, the authors create five resumes and send them to the companies; in the distribution of the resumes, ten background factors of candidates are controlled. The number of callbacks is used as an indicator to understand preferences and discrimination behaviours of employers. The analyses point out a high level of discrimination against foreigners in the Italian job market, particularly against African and Middle Eastern graduates, but no gender discrimination. Moreover, the results show that, given the non-technical nature of the selected job openings, graduates in humanities and social sciences are preferred to engineers and hard scientists, while there is a preference for master’s graduates over bachelor’s graduates.