Non solo capitale umano: la disuguaglianza salariale e il funzionamento del mercato del lavoro

Beyond human capital: wage inequality and the mechanisms on the labour market
The economic literature devoted several studies on identifying determinants of wage inequality, focusing, in particular, on the rise of wage gaps between high skilled and low skilled workers. Focusing on this gap implies taking into account only the inequality «between» workers that differ in terms of educational attainments and, hence, overlooking the wage inequality observed «within» equally educated workers. The main aims of this paper are to compute, by means of inequality indexes decomposition and carrying out wage equations, the role played by the «within» inequality component in Italy and in EU15 countries and to identify possible determinants of the wage gaps among individuals equally educated, including contractual arrangements, family background and some factors affecting individual abilities over education.