Education-job Mismatch Research Articles

Education-Job mismatch, earnings and worker’s satisfaction in African labor market: evidence from Cameroon

Education-Job mismatch, earnings and worker’s satisfaction in African labor market: evidence from Cameroon

Quantifying the productivity effects of education-job mismatch: a cross-country analysis

ABSTRACT This study addresses the relationship between education-job mismatch and aggregate labor market performance in a cross-country setting. We examine the effect of education-job mismatch on aggregate productivity across 15 countries using data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). We measure mismatch levels and compute their incidence across countries. Next, the paper develops a model linking mismatch to aggregate productivity. In the model the allocation of labor across the types of mismatch is derived from the endogenous process. The findings show that reducing mismatch results in increases in output per capita. This provides evidence for an important role of the allocation of workers according to jobs that match their fields of study and qualification levels not only for individual earnings but also for aggregate outcomes.

Sociodemographic Attributes and Dropout Intentions of Working University Students: Evidence from Estonia

This study examines the relationship between various demographic and situational factors and working students’ decisions to change their study programmes and abandon higher education. It utilises a sample of 1902 working students derived from the Eurostudent VII survey and employs cross-tabulation and chi-square tests. The findings reveal statistically significant associations between several factors and students’ educational decisions. Males are more likely to consider abandoning higher education than females. Younger students, particularly those up to 21 years old, are more inclined to consider changing their study programmes. Financial difficulties significantly influence students’ considerations of both changing study programmes and abandoning higher education. Students in the arts, humanities, and ICT are more likely to consider abandoning their studies. Conversely, age does not significantly affect the likelihood of abandoning higher education. Parental educational attainment does not significantly influence decisions to change or abandon study programmes, whereas living situations, such as living independently and not living with parents, significantly affect changing the study programme. Qualification level affects the likelihood of changing study programmes, with bachelor’s students more likely to consider changes than masters and long-term national degree students, but it does not significantly affect the likelihood of abandoning higher education. Education–job mismatch significantly affects both changing study programmes and abandoning higher education, while the duration of working hours only influences the decision to alter study programmes. By revealing these findings, this research extends the student retention discourse as well as highlights how cultural, economic, familial, and workplace capital influence working students’ educational decisions.

The Influence of Parents’ Social Origin on Occupational Achievements of University Graduates: An Analysis of Education–Job Match

Education–job mismatch is an indicator that describes the quality of an individual’s occupational achievements, with socio-familial background being one of the most influential factors in attaining these achievements. In this study, we aim to identify the extent to which the educational level attained by parents influences the education–job mismatch of university graduates. The analysis, deploying binary logistic regression models, is based on the Spanish Survey on the Labor Insertion of University Graduates 2019, with more than 30,000 cases. Main results are that parents’ educational level largely determines the education–job mismatch of university graduates, acting through the intergenerational transmission of opportunities. In this sense, variables such as the field of study or those related to educational investment while at university are highly influential. When we analyze the persistence of mismatch, the influence of these variables is more decisive, so it is considered that there is an indirect influence of social background on occupational attainment through the variables linked to it. Recommendations are made for educational administrations that should favor equal opportunity measures and enhance the effectiveness of educational guidance services.

Postgraduate education and job mismatch in Italy: Does migration help?

AbstractDoctoral graduates represent the pinnacle of education. While the importance of increasing their number has been recognised by the Italian government and there has been a huge increase in the number of publicly funded PhD scholarships, doctoral graduates still struggle in the labour market to find employment commensurate with their skills and competencies. It is against this backdrop that the role of migration becomes crucial. Exploiting Italian microdata at the census level, this study aims to investigate how human capital migration, occurring at different ‘times’ of individual's life and across different regions, could mitigate the potential education–job mismatch, which is measured here from a multidimensional perspective by looking at overeducation, overskilling and satisfaction. Our findings reveal some positive effects of migration on reducing this mismatch. Moreover, the study highlights two relevant gaps, the first between domestic and foreign workers and the second between genders.

The Reform of Curricula in the Spanish University System: How Well Matched Are New Bachelor’s Degrees to Jobs

This study looks at how well bachelor’s degree holders in Spain match into jobs five years after graduation. Based on workers’ self-assessment, education–job mismatch is defined as the discrepancy between the formal qualifications that individuals earned at Spanish universities and those that are required by jobs. By estimating a multinomial logit model, this research identifies fields of study that are associated with increased likelihood of a particular educational mismatch status. Results indicate that university graduates from highly specialized bachelor’s degree programs are more likely to work in a graduate job that is related to their field of education. In particular, graduates with degrees that entail specific human capital, such as health sciences degrees and hard science and engineering degrees, are more likely to be well-matched in their current jobs. In contrast, the results show a higher likelihood of over-qualification (recent graduates who are in non-graduate jobs) for social and legal sciences degrees and arts and humanities degrees. Gender appears to play no role in the matching process; however, the subject-specific knowledge that graduates have gained from their time in higher education is important. As a novelty, this study also identifies, for a sub-sample of workers, the process through which a good match is achieved—that is, how individuals self-select to accept jobs in which they can achieve a good match. The regression results are based on micro data from a nationally representative random sample of the first cohort of undergraduates after the Bologna curriculum reform.

Education-Job Mismatch and Heterogeneity in the Return to Schooling: Evidence from Cameroon

Education-Job Mismatch and Heterogeneity in the Return to Schooling: Evidence from Cameroon

Determinants of Education-Job Vertical Mismatch in Urban Ghana

This paper explores the determinants of education-job vertical mismatch in urban Ghana. It uses cross section data from the World Bank Skills toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) surveys of working age urban population and applies the self-Assessment method of measuring the incidence of education-job mismatch. The study employs the method of multinomial logit to ascertain whether over and undereducated individuals possess a relatively worse bundle of skills than workers who are adequately matched to their jobs in terms of formal education. It identifies gender, marital status, education, skills, occupation and time to proficiency as significant determinants of mismatch. The study adduce evidence to the transient nature of mismatch as reflected in time to proficiency’s negative relationship with overeducation and positive link with undereducation. Given the competitiveness of the national and global economic environment, the study provides some policy thoughts towards addressing challenges of skill mismatch.

Determinants of education-job vertical mismatch in urban Ghana

The paper explores the determinants of education-job vertical mismatch in urban Ghana. It uses cross sectional data from the World Bank Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) surveys of working age urban population and applies the self-assessment method of measuring the incidence of education-job mismatch. The study employs the method of multinomial logit estimation technique to ascertain whether over and undereducated individuals possess a relatively worse bundle of skills than workers who are adequately matched to their jobs in terms of formal education. It identifies gender, marital status, education, skills, occupation and time-to-proficiency as significant determinants of mismatch. The study adduces evidence to the transient nature of mismatch as reflected in time-to-proficiency's negative relationship with overeducation and positive link with undereducation. Given the competitiveness of the national and global economic environment, the study provides some policy thoughts towards addressing challenges of skill mismatch.

Mismatch Between Education and Occupation: A Case Study of Pakistani Graduates.

In this study, an attempt has been made to estimate the incidences of job mismatch in Pakistan. The study has divided the job mismatch into three categories; education-job mismatch, qualification mismatch and field of study and job mismatch. Both the primary and secondary datasets have been used in which the formal sector employed graduates have been targeted. This study has measured the education-job mismatch by three approaches and found that about one-third of the graduates are facing education-job mismatch. In similar, more than one-fourth of the graduates are mismatched in qualification, about half of them are over-qualified and the half are under-qualified. The analysis also shows that 11.3 percent of the graduates have irrelevant and 13.8 percent have slightly relevant jobs to their studied field of disciplines. Our analysis shows that women are more likely than men to be mismatched in field of study. JEL classification: I23, I24, J21, J24 Keywords: Education and Inequality, Higher Education, Human Capital, Labour Market

Do immigrants experience labor market mismatch? New evidence from the US PIAAC

BackgroundOne way of evaluating immigrants’ labor market outcomes is to assess the extent to which immigrants are able to enter into jobs that are commensurate with their education and experience. An imperfect alignment between workers’ educational qualifications and these required for their current job, or education-job mismatch, has implications for both the broader economy and individual workers. In this study, we investigate the factors associated with education-job mismatches among US workers by immigrant generation.MethodsWe analyzed the data from the US sample of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2012/2014. Our analytic sample included 4022 employed (full and part-time) individuals between the ages of 20–65 years. We documented the distribution of education-job mismatches across selected independent variables and estimated the relationship between the individual characteristics of workers such as race, gender, presence of children, location, time in the country and knowledge of English for first-generation immigrant workers, and education-job mismatch using multinomial logistic regressions for the full sample and for the sample of first- and second-generation workers.ResultsWe found that on average, immigrant workers in the US labor market were more likely to hold jobs which required less education that they had (being overmatched for the job), with first-generation workers being overmatched more frequently than second-generation workers. The probability of being overmatched for immigrant workers declines with the length of stay, and workers who are proficient in English are less likely to be overmatched. Our results also suggest that there may be labor market disadvantages to immigrant status that persist beyond the first-generation.ConclusionsPrevious research demonstrated that over-education depresses wages and lowers workers’ standards of living and their abilities to accumulate wealth. Our findings confirm that this dynamic may be particularly acute for first- and second-generation workers who are finding it difficult to become fully integrated into US labor markets, even though the factors behind the mismatch differs between the two immigrant generations.

Gender overeducation gap in the digital age: Can spatial flexibility through working from home close the gap?

This study analyses the gender overeducation gap, meaning differences between partnered men and women in the degree of holding a job with lower requirements compared to one's own education, and how working from home (WfH) affects overeducation. Contextualising education–job mismatches in the digital age, we update an old topic of labour market research considering new options of spatial flexibility via WfH. Using a unique German dataset of the core employed population in 2018 (i.e., individuals that are at least 15 years old and report paid work for at least 10 h per week), our results show a gender overeducation gap, with women at a higher risk of overeducation than men. By applying a latent variable approach with simultaneous regressions to account for potential selection into jobs allowing WfH, we find that the WfH option carries a lower overeducation risk. Moreover, the findings suggest a gender-specific benefit of WfH: women show higher overeducation risks among employees without the WfH option, but the gender overeducation gap is closed among those with the WfH option.

Education-Job Mismatch: Implications for Individual Earnings and Aggregate Output

Education-Job Mismatch: Implications for Individual Earnings and Aggregate Output

Education–Job Mismatch in Saudi Arabia: An Analysis of Horizontal Mismatch among Tertiary Graduates

Education–Job Mismatch in Saudi Arabia: An Analysis of Horizontal Mismatch among Tertiary Graduates

Qualification (Mis)Match for Upper Secondary and Higher Education

The expansion of education all over the world is expected to improve economic and social development. However, the oversupply of educated labor force might bring unfavorable consequences for the labor market and long-run growth prospects. In this regard the purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims at summarizing the main channels and mechanisms through which education–job mismatch could impact the changes of per capita income. Second, the study presents empirical evidence on that impact by differentiating between qualification mismatch among workers having completed tertiary education and those with upper secondary education. The sample comprises the EU member countries between 2000 and 2019. The results suggest that whereas the higher percentage of the properly matched labor force increases the steady-state level of per capita output for both educational levels being considered, the effect of qualification mismatch is either negative or insignificant. There is some evidence that overeducation among higher education graduates exhibits a stronger negative effect on economic activity in comparison with overeducation among workers with upper secondary education.

The Fragile Axes of Life: A Capability Approach Perspective towards Graduates’ Education–Job Mismatches and Subjective Well-Being

Using the capability approach as a theoretical framework, this article aims to: (1) explore how subjective individual well-being differs among higher education graduates and especially to what extent it is associated with graduates’ vertical education–job mismatches; (2) reveal the embeddedness of the link between graduates’ vertical education–job mismatches and subjective well-being in different socio-economic contexts; and (3) outline some policy implications of the analysis undertaken. It argues that vertical education–job mismatch among graduates has an important influence on experiences of the benefits that come from higher education. By analysing micro-level data from the European Social Survey, carried out in 2012 and macro-level data for 24 European countries via descriptive statistics and multilevel regression, the study shows that education–job mismatch is associated with capability deprivation, as graduates who are vertically mismatched have less interest in what they are doing, feel less autonomous and competent, and are less confident that they are leading a meaningful life or being treated with respect by others in comparison to those graduates who are employed in jobs which correspond to their level of education. The article also provides evidence that the association between graduates’ education–job mismatches and individual subjective well-being is embedded in different socio-economic contexts.

Mapping the (mis)match of university degrees in the graduate labor market

This paper contributes to the scarce literature on the topic of horizontal education-job mismatch in the labor market for graduates of universities. Field-of-study mismatch or horizontal mismatch occurs when university graduates, trained in a particular field, work in another field at their formal qualification level. The data used in the analysis come from the first nationally representative survey of labor insertion of recent university graduates in Spain. By estimating a multinomial logistic regression, we are able to identify the match status 4 years after graduation based on self-assessments. We find a higher likelihood of horizontal mismatch among graduates of Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Pharmacy, and Languages and Literature. Only graduates in Medicine increase the probability of being adequately matched in their jobs. It may be hypothesized that horizontal mismatch is more likely among those graduates in degree fields that provide more general skills and less likely among those from degree fields providing more occupation-specific skills. Other degrees such as Business Studies, and Management and Economics Studies increase the probability of being vertically mismatched (over-educated). Vertical mismatch preserves at least some of the specific human capital gained through formal educational qualifications. However, some workers with degrees in Labor Relations and Social Work are in non-graduate positions and study areas unrelated to their studies. The paper also shows that graduates in the fields of health sciences and engineering/architecture increase the probability of achieving an education-job match after external job mobility.

Over-qualification in the Workforce: Do Indigenous Women and Men Benefit Equally from High Levels of Education?

Using data from the 2016 Census, this study examined the level of education–job mismatch (over-qualification, in particular) in the Canadian labour market among Indigenous women workers aged 25 to 64 who received post-secondary education. Their rate of over-qualification was compared with that of Indigenous men as well as non-Indigenous workers. In doing so, this study aimed to shed some light on the effect of post-secondary education on labour market outcomes by investigating whether Indigenous men and women benefit equally from their post-secondary education. Compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts and Indigenous men, Indigenous women workers with university-level education (bachelor’s degree or higher) were less likely to be over-qualified. Conversely, Indigenous women workers with post-secondary education lower than university level were more likely than non-Indigenous women and Indigenous men to be over-qualified. This pattern persisted after sociodemographic factors were controlled for. The results suggest that, among those with a post-secondary education, higher levels of education were especially advantageous to Indigenous women.

Education-Job Mismatch and Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from Recent College Graduates in Korea

Education-Job Mismatch and Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from Recent College Graduates in Korea

Publisher Correction: Does Discrepancy Between Job Choice Motivation and Satisfaction and Education–Job Mismatch Affect Turnover Intention of Nonprofit Employees?

Publisher Correction: Does Discrepancy Between Job Choice Motivation and Satisfaction and Education–Job Mismatch Affect Turnover Intention of Nonprofit Employees?