Overeducation and Overskilling in Australia: Second Generation Greek-Australians and Italian-Australians

Abstract

We utilise HILDA data over the period 2001-2005 to evaluate the performance of second generation Greek-Australians and Italian-Australians in the labour market. We focus on the effect of overeducation, undereducation, languages-other-than-English (LOTE), and ethnicity on weekly earnings of full-time workers. The evidence has a follows: (a) most Greek-Australians are over-represented amongst the overeducated; (b) overeducation and overskilling can be attributed to a lack of new skills on the job, parental occupational status, non-English speaking overseas born, and unobserved characteristics of second generation females; (c) LOTE does not seem to make a contribution to earning of individual workers, and (d) the use of LOTE amongst the two second generation groups has declined; second generation women in part-time employment are an exception.