Labour Market Assimilation and Over-Education: The Case of Immigrant Workers in Italy

This paper contributes to the literature on the assimilation of immigrants into the Italian labour market by using over-education as an indicator of labour market performance. The analysis is based on data taken from the Italian Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the period between 2005 and 2007. Distinguishing between the effect of human capital acquired abroad and domestically on over-education, we aim at finding indirect evidence on the increase in skill transferability over time. We find that foreigners are much more likely to be over-educated than natives upon their arrival in Italy and that work experience gained in the country of origin is not valued in the Italian labour market. Moreover, we find that not even experience acquired in Italy is helpful in improving immigrants' educational job matches, suggesting that catch-up by foreigners seems unachievable, even after they adapt their skills to the host country labour market.