During the year 2009 the Italian National Institute of Statistics carried out the survey – involving all the Italian universities – that allowed the “Census” of all the graduates who had attained their university degree during the year 2007. The purpose of this survey was to obtain the “population” to extract the “sample” of university graduates from; the 2007 graduates were subsequently interviewed during the year 2011 in the Survey on the university graduates’ vocational integration.
The survey on the university graduates’ vocational integration (in 2011 the eighth edition was carried out) aims at detecting the employment conditions of university graduates some years after graduation. The survey is part of the survey-system on the study-to-work-transition, which also includes the total survey on the doctorate holders’ vocational integration and the sample one on the upper secondary school graduates’ transition to university and labour market. Every three years the surveys use the C.A.T.I. technique (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) to interview a single batch of students about three years after their graduation (even five years for PhDs), providing a comprehensive picture on the transition pathways from education to employment for the young.
The survey on the university graduates’ vocational integration was carried out in two steps: the first one involved the universities (Census), while the second one was oriented directly to graduates (Survey). The universities sent the corresponding lists in electronic mode to the specifically designed Istat website. The resulting universe consisted of 300.338 university graduates; a sample of 62.000 names was extracted from.
The release of the “universe” file is an innovation in the survey-system on the study-to-work-transition: for the first time in the 2011 edition of the survey, Istat makes available the census data.