THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZED CRIME ON DECENT JOBS FOR YOUTH. Evidence from Italy

Sammanfattning: Young people face enormous difficulties in finding decent jobs both in developed and developing countries. The estimates indicate that 68 million young people globally are looking for a job; 123 million are working but living in poverty; and 270 million are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). Many young people are also underemployed, inadequately paid, and working in the shadow economy. Earlier research finds that structural problems of the labor market and the education system, individual characteristics, and crimes (such as theft or robbery) influence job opportunities for young people. However, previous studies disregard the potential consequences of organized crime (OC) on the quality of jobs for youth. This gap is surprising as OC is a transnational problem. It manages illicit activities producing between 2 % and 5% of the world’s GDP, and 79.2% of the global population lives in high-level criminal countries. Thus, this thesis aims at quantifying the impact of the presence of OC on decent jobs for youth. I conduct a quantitative cross-sectional case study of 106 Italian provinces, using the Synthetic Index of Mafia Presence developed by the Bank of Italy and several indicators to measure the quality of jobs for people aged 15-34, 15-24, and 25-34. The results of the OLS analysis are robust to alternative measurements and control variables. The evidence demonstrates that where the mafia is more present, regular employment, average hourly wages, and labor participation are lower, while irregular employment is higher, especially among 25-34 years old.