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The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region shows high levels of unemployment rates among youth and the rate of youth not in education, employment or training (NEET) is also among the highest in the world. In this context, one of the more obvious reactions of youth facing unmet aspirations in the labour market is migration. The objective of the paper is to analyse the determinants of intentions to migrate of youth NEETs during their school-to-work transitions in selected MENA countries. With this aim, I use microdata from School-to-Work Transition Surveys (SWTS) conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2013-2015 in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia. These surveys targeted a nationally representative sample of young people between 15 and 29 and collected data on intentions to migrate (internal and international) and different factors related to their social and educational background. Microeconometric models are used to achieve a better understanding of factors influencing youth's decision to migrate.

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As Spain recovers from the recession, the national government has undertaken measures to promote the reintegration of immigrant and other disadvantaged workers into the labor market, primarily through training. At the regional level, there has also been a movement toward developing specific initiatives for new immigrants, with a focus on language courses and orientation programs. This report examines the employment, training, and language education policies that support immigrants' labor market inclusion in Spain, and evaluates how effectively they support new arrivals in finding work and moving out of the lowest-skilled jobs. The report begins with an overview of the Spanish labor market and recent reforms, the position of immigrants within the labor market, and the governance of integration policy in Spain. It then provides an assessment of these policies, focusing on the role of employment services, language education, vocational training, and employers and social partners. Finally, the report concludes with recommendations for further refining policies to support immigrants' labor market inclusion in Spain.

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The aim of this paper is to analyse the role played by the different components of human capital in the wage determination of recent immigrants within the Spanish labour market. Using microdata from the Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes [National Immigrant Survey] 2007, the paper examines returns to human capital of immigrants, distinguishing between human capital accumulated in their home countries and in Spain. It also examines the impact on wages of the legal status. The evidence shows that returns to host country sources of human capital are higher than returns to foreign human capital, reflecting the limited international transferability of the latter. The only exception occurs in the case of immigrants from developed countries and immigrants who have studied in Spain. Whatever their home country, they obtain relatively high wage returns to education, including the part not acquired in the host country. Having legal status in Spain is associated with a substantial wage premium of around 15 per cent. Lastly, the overall evidence confirms the presence of a strong heterogeneity in wage returns to different kinds of human capital and in the wage premium associated with the legal status as a function of the immigrants' area of origin.

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The aim of this work is to assess the effectiveness of active labour market policies carried out by the Catalan Public Employment Services (SOC) during the year 2005. The results obtained from the application of matching techniques show that the probability of finding a job for an individual who participated in any of the analyzed SOC's actions is five percentage points higher in relation to those who did not participate. The individual analysis of the different programs has shown the effectiveness of the greater part of the actions carried out. Last, the results have also highlighted the further improvement of the combination of some of the actions.

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The article examines public-private sector wage differentials in Spain using microdata from the Structure of Earnings Survey (Encuesta de Estructura Salarial). When applying various decomposition techniques, [the authors] find that it is important to distinguish by gender and type of contract. [The] results also highlight the presence of a positive wage premium for public sector workers that can be partially explained by their better endowment of characteristics, in particular by the characteristics of the establishment where they work. The wage premium is greater for female and fixed-term employees and falls across the wage distribution, being negative for more highly skilled workers.

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The objective of this paper is to analyse and explain the factors behind the observed differences in skill mismatches (vertical and horizontal) between natives and immigrants in [European Union] EU countries. Using microdata from the 2007 wave of the Adult Education Survey (AES), different probit models are specified and estimated to analyse differences in the probability of each type of skill mismatch between natives and immigrants. Next, Yun's decomposition method is used to identify the relative contribution of characteristics and returns to explain the differences between the two groups. [The authors'] analysis shows that immigrants are more likely to be skill mismatched than natives, being this difference much larger for vertical mismatch. In this case, the difference is higher for immigrants coming from non-EU countries than for those coming from other EU countries.

[The authors] find that immigrants from non-EU countries are less valued in the EU labour markets than natives with similar characteristics, a result that is not observed for immigrants from EU countries. These results could be related to the limited transferability of the human capital acquired in non-EU countries. The findings suggest that specific programs to adapt immigrants' human capital acquired in home country are required to reduce differences in the incidence of skill mismatch and a better integration in the EU labour markets.

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This research examines wage differences between part-time and full-time workers using microdata from the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey. The main contribution of the paper is related to the analysis of differences along the wage distribution using econometric decomposition methods and introducing a regional perspective. The evidence shows that part-time workers in Spain experience a significant wage disadvantage. This disadvantage is worse in the case of female workers and it is not homogenous along the wage distribution, being comparatively more relevant for the most qualified women and becoming positive for the most qualified men. However, the disadvantage is practically explained by the endowments of characteristics, with a leading role of segregation of part-time workers in low-wage firms. From a regional perspective, although in the majority of the regions wage differences tend to be explained by endowments of characteristics, there are several regions where the unexplained part of the differential is significant, particularly in the case of male workers. These regional differences seem to be related to differences in the market power of firms at the regional level.

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Despite the large number of studies that draw on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) microdata in their analyses of the determinants of educational outcomes, no more than a few consider the relevance of geographical location. In going some way to rectify this, our paper examines the differences in educational outcomes between students attending schools in rural areas and those enrolled in urban schools. We use microdata from the 2006 and 2009 PISA survey waves for Colombia. The Colombian case is particularly interesting in this regard due to the structural changes suffered by the country in recent years, both in terms of its political stability and of the educational reform measures introduced. Our descriptive analysis of the data shows that the educational outcomes of rural students are worse than those of urban students. In order to identify the factors underpinning this differential, we use the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and then exploit the time variation in the data using the methodology proposed by Juhn-Murphy-Pierce. Our results show that most of the differential is attributable to family characteristics as opposed to those of the school. From a policy perspective, our evidence supports actions addressed at improving conditions in the family rather than measures of positive discrimination of rural schools.

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The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of individual variables and some characteristics related to spatial mobility in regional labour markets on overeducation in Spain. With this aim, we use microdata from the Spanish Budget Family Survey to estimate a logit model for overeducation probability taking into account the problem of selection bias and the presence of data of different levels (individuals and territory). The obtained results permit us to conclude that the size of local labour markets and the possibility of extending the job search to other labour markets through commuting are relevant factors to explain overeducation in the Spanish labour market. In spite of the differences in terms of labour market institutions, our results are very similar to the ones obtained for other countries.

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The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using various indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated with an increase in overeducation. In fact, measures of educational mismatch seem to be more strongly connected to regional economic performance than do other traditional measures of human capital stock.

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