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The purpose of this paper is to consider the enrolment at university and the subsequent possible dropout as a piece of the school-to-work transition and ask whether it improves or worsens the labour market outcomes a few years after graduation from the high school.

The analysis exploits data from the upper secondary graduate survey by ISTAT on a cohort of high school graduates and investigates the effect of dropping out four years after graduation. The labour market outcomes of university dropouts are compared to the outcomes of high school graduates who never enrolled at university. A propensity score matching approach is applied. The model is also estimated on the subsamples of males and females.

The findings show that spending a period at university and leaving it before completion makes the transition to work substantially more difficult. Both the probability of being NEET and getting a bad job increase in the case of dropout, while no relevant effect is found on earnings. Moreover, the impact of university dropout tends to be more harmful the longer the spell from enrolment to dropping out. Separate estimates by gender point out that females appear to be relatively more affected in the case of dropping out without a fallback plan.

While the existing studies in the literature on the school-to-work transition mostly focus on the determinants of the dropout, this paper investigates whether and how the employment outcomes are affected by dropping out in Italy. Moreover, university dropouts are compared to high school graduates with no university experience, rather than to university graduates. Finally, evidence on the mechanisms driving the effect of dropping out is provided, by considering timing and motivations for dropping out.

After the decision of the Egyptian government to adhere to the Equal Pay International Coalition in 2020, a great deal needs to be done to guarantee ‘equal pay for equal work’. The authors provide a comprehensive, in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the gender wage gap in Egypt, as well as its evolution over the last 20 years, disaggregated by public and private sector. The authors also provide an analysis of the cultural determinants of Egypt's low female participation.

The authors apply the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition (with sample selection) to assess the gender wage gap at the mean of the wage distribution in the public and private sector. The authors also implement a re-centred influence function decomposition to assess the extent of ‘discrimination’ along the wage distribution in both sectors. An inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment procedure is used to assess the joint impact of gender and firm-ownership. A female participation equation taking into account gender equality attitude is provided.

The authors find a sizable and increasing gender wage gap in the private sector almost entirely due to ‘discrimination’. The authors also find evidence of a sticky floor in the private sector and a glass ceiling in the public one. Cultural barriers play a major role in determining female participation.

This is the first paper on the evolution of gender equality in Egypt that takes into account the effect of the 'Arab Spring’ of 2011. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first time that an IPWRA procedure is applied to study the interaction effect of gender and firm-ownership.

The purpose of this paper is to check the existence of the added worker effect (AWE) in Italy during the Great Recession.

The authors used the Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth to study factors driving the change in female work status over the period 2006-2012. The probit model was used to identify the timing, significance and the magnitude of the AWE. The authors also performed panel estimates to understand how women, positioned at either extensive or intensive margins, respond to the reduction in male hours of work which appear to be crucial for the AWE to manifest.

The authors find that with the crisis progressing, Italian women respond ever less to the reduction in male earnings, at the same time they become more responsive to the job loss by male partner which is the worst outcome. This means that the AWE survives, even if only in cases of serious hardship. It also remains when the reduction in male incomes is coupled with the reduction in their hours of work, suggesting that the redistribution of household chores is an important prerequisite for women to get into work.

This paper provides evidence on the AWE in Italy during the Great Recession. The authors took into account the peculiarity of the Italian labour market whose performance was affected by the use of the Wage Supplementation Fund. It masks part of the AWE when the standard methodology is used. By looking at the reduction in male earnings with or without a change in their work hours, the authors were able to reveal additional channels through which the AWE operates in Italy.