Labour market, education and training

Aim of the course is to provide students with the analytical skills needed for a scientific understanding of the functioning of contemporary labour markets and of their relation to the educational and vocational training systems. This will be done by approaching the topic from two disciplinary perspectives: Economic Sociology and Labour Economics. Concerning the former, students will be introduced to the study of social stratification, its changes over time and the role of education and vocational training in this process, both at the individual and the aggregate level. Concerning the latter, students will be introduced to the study of the wage distribution, its changes over time and countries, and the causal analysis of the relations linking education and labour market outcomes.

Knowledge and understanding:
By the end of the course, students will have learned the foundations of both Economic Sociology and Labour Economics, from both a theoretical and an applied point of view. They will thus be able to study the functioning of the labour market and the job-matching process from two complementary perspectives: the micro perspective, looking at the matching between job and individual characteristics; and the macro perspective, which looks at the aggregate patterns of socio-economic inequality in comparison over time and space (international comparison).

Applying knowledge and understanding:
The theoretical and analytical skills provided by this course might be applied in a number of contexts, ranging from personnel management in corporations to social policy management to base and applied research in a number of social science disciplines.

Making judgements:
Students will learn how any statement on the labour market and its changes over time and space has to be supported by quantitative evidence, and how to judge scientific evidence from other forms of discourses on society, labour and corporations. They will thus be able to make informed judgements on both the functioning of the labour market and the public discourse concerning it.

Communication skills:
Students will learn how scientific communication works, clearly distinguishing the steps of scientific research: literature review; hypotheeis building; data collection; data analysis and discussion of the hypotheses. They will learn how to communicate the level of uncertainty of statistical estimations. They will thus be able to communicate scientific results in a way understandable to the laymen.

Learning skills:
Students will strengthen their analytic skills in general, and in particular will be provided with a general basic knowledge of the two disciplinary fields involved, in order to enable them to pursue additional specialized learning on its basis.