Over-educated and underpaid

There is a worldwide hunger for trained workers, but not necessarily with degrees.

Very few people have proved that the Latin saying Carmina non dant panem (roughly, “poetry doesn’t put bread on the table”) is wrong. But now it seems to apply to much more than the humanities per se, and many are losing faith in the possibility that a university degree can guarantee a better future. The plethora of young unemployed or underpaid European graduates seems to prove these sceptics right.

A recent analysis of skills and pay in Italy (La Meglio Gioventù: Earnings Gaps Across Generations and Skills in Italy) provides some academic backing on the issue. Comparing the earnings of Italians in three different age ranges, the study reveals a trend, shared by other countries as well, towards lower pay for the younger generations. The difference being, according to the report, that in Italy it is the “Best of Youth” – namely young people with the highest levels of education and skills – “who have suffered the most.”

This trend had already started well before the economic crisis began.

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