Sardinia remains at the bottom of the national rankings for the incidence of graduates in the demographic group between 25 and 49 years old, integrating these with income indicators that allow us to explore the relationship between university education and income in the municipalities of the island.
This is what emerges from the new report entitled "Human Capital and Income in Sardinia: The Link Between University Education and Territorial Inequalities," published by the Confindustria Sardegna Study Center. The analysis examines the relationship between the prevalence of university education and income levels in the island's 377 municipalities.
The study integrates various indicators of college graduate incidence—in the medium and long term—with the main measures of income at the municipal level. The analysis is conducted using correlations and linear regressions, controlling for demographic size and the structural characteristics of the territories. Quantitatively, the estimates indicate that a one percentage point increase in the incidence of college graduates among the population aged 25 to 49 is associated with an increase of approximately €117 in the average taxable income of each municipality.
Multiplying the increase by the number of Sardinian taxpayers, the 4.3 percentage point difference compared to the Italian average would cost Sardinia over 520 million euros per year.
The results highlight a positive and statistically significant relationship between the share of college graduates and municipal income levels, particularly for employment income and taxable income. The relationship remains positive and significant even when excluding the main urban centers and their surrounding areas from the analysis , indicating that the link between human capital and income is not limited to major centers, but represents a widespread dynamic across the region.
"The problem isn't just the already serious one of Sardinia lagging significantly behind other Italian regions, sharing second-to-last place with Campania," says Andrea Porcu, director of Confindustria Sardegna. "What's perhaps even more worrying is that this is happening despite Cagliari being among the top Italian cities, and Sassari, Nuoro, and Oristano also being among the top 10% of municipalities in the country. The other side of this coin is, inevitably, an extremely unbalanced territorial distribution, where vast areas of Sardinia have less than 15% of graduates, and sometimes not even 10%."
(Unioneonline)