Educational Mismatch Research Articles

Educational Mismatch and Income Inequality in Developing Countries

This study aims to evaluate the influence of educational mismatch on income inequality in developing countries. The research is conducted using secondary data from ten developing countries over a twenty-year period (2001–2020). Statistical analysis is performed on the dataset using Stata, where the main variable representing income inequality is the GINI coefficient, and educational mismatch is assessed using educational attainment, educational attainment of females, and educational expenditure. The fixed effect and robust standard error techniques are applied to address the association among the variables. The study's findings reveal that educational attainment and educational expenditure have a positive influence on the GINI coefficient, indicating that the two factors contribute to an educational mismatch in the developing country. On the other hand, the findings also reveal that the educational attainment of females has a negative effect on the GINI coefficient, indicating that a high level of educational attainment among females can help to improve the income equality of developing countries. The implications of the study are particularly relevant to the policymakers and governments of developing countries. They should take steps to increase the level of education among females to contribute to increased income equality levels in their country.

The wage effects of overeducation across overall wage distribution on university graduates: incidence, heterogeneity and comparison

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the extent to which overeducation imposes wage effects on university graduates, taking into account the individual heterogeneity due to skills and innate ability.Design/methodology/approachUsing Graduates Occupation and Mobility Survey (GOMS) 2019 and Korea Dictionary of Occupations (KDOT) 2019, the overeducated and adequately educated graduates are differentiated by the job analysis (JA) measure. To unveil the masked results, the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) accompanying skills and field of study mismatches is adopted to explore the wage effects of overeducation across the overall wage distribution.FindingsEmpirical evidence shows that the incidence of overeducation is high; however, overeducated graduates only suffer a 6.5% wage loss relative to their adequately matched peers. The findings indicate that regardless of being derived from either overskilled or field of study mismatch, genuine overeducation impose a higher wage penalty at all percentiles relative to the apparent overeducation. Meanwhile, high-ability men suffer lower-wage penalties than their low-ability peers, whereas the inverted “U” pattern is exhibited for women. The theoretical hypotheses differ depending on the estimated results by gender.Research limitations/implicationsEach measure of educational mismatch has been criticized for its insurmountable shortcoming. The recent graduates are likely to overstate the job requires of skills.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the insufficient evidence on the multiple aspects of wage effects of overeducation by providing new and rigorous examinations and by focusing on the country experiencing rapid economic growth, industrial upgrading and educational expansion.

Educational mismatch in recent university graduates. The role of labour mobility

ABSTRACT This article analyses patterns of persistence in both vertical and horizontal educational mismatch in the early career of university graduates in Spain, with particular emphasis on the mediating role of job mobility. We explore whether educational mismatch is a stepping stone towards better-matched positions or whether graduates get trapped in mismatched jobs. Our results show that job mobility partially corrects educational mismatch (supporting the stepping stone hypothesis), but there is still a strong persistence in educational mismatches four years after graduation (the trap hypothesis). Vertical mismatch is, overall, less persistent than horizontal mismatch, in part because some horizontally mismatched graduates lack incentives to make corrective movements across employers because of compensating job features that keep them in their first jobs. Job rotation and poor accumulation of employment experience challenge the correcting role of job mobility in educational mismatch risk. These results reflect relevant features of the Spanish labour market: segmentation, intensive job turnover and high youth unemployment.

Does Educational Mismatch Affect Emigration Behaviour?

This paper uses linked Swiss administrative and survey data to examine the relationship between educational mismatch in the labour market and emigration decisions, carrying out the analysis for both Swiss native and previous immigrant workers. In turn, migrants’ decisions separate returning home from onward migration to a third country. We find that undereducation is positively associated with the probability of emigration and return to the country of origin. In contrast, the reverse relationship is found between overeducation and emigration, especially among non-European immigrant workers. According to the predictions of the traditional model of migration, based on self-selection, migrants returning home are positively selected relative to migrants emigrating to other countries. We also find that immigrants from a country outside the EU27/EFTA have little incentive to return home and generally accept jobs for which they are mismatched in Switzerland. These results highlight the relevance to understand emigration behaviours in relation to the type of migrant that is most integrated, and productive, in the Swiss market, hence enabling better migration and domestic labour market policy design.

Trends in Educational and Skill Mismatch in the United States

We examined trends in the incidence and correlates of educational and skill mismatch in the United States. We focused on trends over time in the associations between various types of mismatch and a range of factors including contextual conditions. We explored whether contextual conditions at the transitional period from school to jobs increase or decrease the probability of mismatch and whether such relationships persist throughout the working career. Our central questions were how the incidence of and relationship between educational and skill mismatch in the U.S. changed between 1994, 2003, and 2012 and how this differed by age, gender, immigration status, educational attainment, and occupation. We used three cross-sectional surveys that had not previously been implemented for such an effort. These were the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in 1994, the Adult Literacy and Life-skills (ALL) survey in 2003, and the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in 2012. Repeated cross-sectional data provided us with substantial analytic leverage. Our findings point toward the key role of occupational or positional factors rather than individual worker characteristics as being most implicated in trends in mismatch. We describe the importance of our results for labor market theories.

Patterns and Persistence of Educational Mismatch: A Trajectory Approach Using Chilean Panel Data

The misalignment between workers’ educational levels and the educational level typically required for their occupations, namely educational mismatch, has become widespread. However, despite its potential costs, there is little evidence of this situation in developing countries. Using longitudinal and retrospective data of employment histories between 2009 and 2019, this paper conducts sequence analysis to construct a typology of educational mismatch trajectories among Chilean workers. We demonstrate that mismatch is a prevalent and persistent phenomenon. Once people enter the labor market, either as undereducated or overeducated workers, they tend to stay in such positions for extended periods of time. Moreover, we find significant wage penalties for workers in a mismatch situation. Results indicate that females and young, less-educated men are more prone to follow trajectories with longer periods of mismatch or unemployment. New avenues for research and the need for public policies looking at these phenomena are required to avoid people’s dissatisfaction due to a possible false promise that more education can improve their life standards.

Knowledge mapping of skills mismatch phenomenon: a scientometric analysis

PurposeThis paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature.Design/methodology/approachThe authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000–2020.FindingsThrough the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent’s effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon.Originality/valueThe scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.

Career of horizontal education mismatch workers: Career competency, job crafting, and work engagement

Education is one of many factors that has the biggest impact toward unemployment rate due to the fact that there are mismatches between educational background and the intended job, and it is named horizontal education mismatch. The employee who is run into educational mismatch condition is seen less-competent, less-qualified, and less accomplished associated with company and work engagement which should be owned by every employee, both supervisors and subordinates. The purpose of this study was to test out that Job Crafting can play a role as a relation mediator between career competencies and work engagement toward employees which run into horizontal education mismatch. This was quantitative research; with purposive sampling method to recruit the respondent. The respondent of this research was people with age range 17-65 years old and using Process v3.5 by Hayes, The Simple Mediation Model No.4. Considering the phenomenon of Horizontal Education Mismatch which has an impact on competency and work engagement. The uniqueness of this research was to pay attention to the suitability of educational background with the current occupation, which indirectly affects the competence of workers. The results of this study were in accordance with the aims and expectations of the researchers. The results of this study indicated that job crafting plays a role as a mediator in the correlation between career competencies and work engagement. Hopefully, it will be able to meet the competency needs of employees to increase employee engagement with the company.

호텔직원의 직무불일치가 직무만족에 미치는 영향 : 정서적 몰입의 매개효과를 중심으로

The objectives of this study are to identify the types of job mismatch in the hospitality industry, and to investigate the effect of job mismatch on job satisfaction focusing on the meditating role of affective commitment. Data were collected from the hotel employees in Seoul from January 6 to 8, 2020, and finally 282 questionnaires were analyzed. Education mismatch, skill mismatch, and subject mismatch were showed as the three dimensions of job mismatch by the result of factor analysis. The results of hypothesis test indicated that education mismatch did not affect on affective commitment, but skill mismatch and subject mismatch affected on affective commitment. It was also found that education mismatch did not affect on job satisfaction, but skill mismatch and subject mismatch affected on job satisfaction. The meditating effect of affective commitment was partially confirmed between job mismatch and job satisfaction. It was confirmed that affective commitment had a complete meditating role between skill mismatch and job satisfaction, and it had a partial meditating role between subject mismatch and job satisfaction. The practical implications for human resource management in the hospitality industry have been discussed.

Educational mismatch and income inequality

We build a model to understand educational mismatch and income inequality among highly educated workers. For occupations and workers with college majors, educational mismatch negatively impacts wage but positively correlates with wage inequality. We examine different channels that contribute to wage inequality by identifying three underlying reasons behind the mismatch, namely, preference, promotion, and search friction and quantifying their impacts. Quantitatively, preference and promotion negatively contribute to an inequality increase from 1990 to 2000; match premium and search friction contribute to a 28.4% and 5.3% increase in inequality, respectively. We conclude that educational mismatch significantly affects income inequality and that this impact varies based on the underlying reasons. The study has important policy implications as it shows that policies for improving education match rate and educational signaling and less market friction can reduce wage inequality.

Clustering Secondary Education and the Focus on Science: Impacts on Higher Education and the Job Market in Bangladesh

Many countries continue to follow a policy of clustering educational provision by disciplinary stream as developed during the British colonial era. Whether such an approach enables education to fulfill its developmental purpose is still open to debate. Using multiple qualitative tools, this study investigates the impact of clustering education in Bangladesh. The findings suggest that the clustering system favors science graduates, creating an atmosphere of educational disparity. This disparity affects the symbiotic and reciprocal relationship that exists between different levels (i.e., secondary, tertiary) of education. The clustering system further contributes to a larger “horizontal educational mismatch” in the job market. As a consequence, it is argued that, in Bangladesh, the education system fails adequately to support social and economic developments. This article suggests a revision of the prevailing policy to address the constraints.

Wage effects of educational mismatch and job search in Ghana and Kenya

ABSTRACT Education is key to development strategies in Africa. We use overeducation and undereducation to analyse the effectiveness of education in preparing individuals for employment in Kenya and Ghana, using the Skills Towards Employment and Productivity Survey. Systematic differences in wages between matched, overeducated and undereducated workers hold across attainment levels, even controlling for cognitive skills. Overeducated workers are rewarded above exactly matched workers, partially supporting human capital theory. Undereducated workers are compensated over their education level, following the job competition model. Obtaining a job through social networks is widespread, but associated with lower wages for the overeducated and exactly matched.

The relationship between job discretion and learning participation, and the moderating effect of educational mismatch

The relationship between job discretion and learning participation, and the moderating effect of educational mismatch

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

Using data from the 2014 Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey (GOMS) conducted by the Korea Employment Information Service, this study examines the effects of (1) discrepancy between intrinsic job choice motivation and satisfaction, (2) discrepancy between extrinsic job choice motivation and satisfaction, and (3) job–education mismatch on the turnover intention of nonprofit employees. This study finds that extrinsic discrepancy is a more significant factor for turnover intention among nonprofit employees than intrinsic discrepancy. In addition, we find that job–education mismatch increases the turnover intention of nonprofit employees.

Are we ready? Labour market transit to the digital economy

Industrialised countries are currently facing the knowledge-to-digital economy transition. That transition is strictly defined by how the labour market is organised and operates in the national economy. Some old to new phenomena are determinants of those dimensions, such as educational mismatch, credential inflation, and job polarisation. These phenomena affect the relationship between schooling and earnings, carrying consequences for social mobility, household welfare, and an individual's social progression perspective. Those phenomena remain understudied in the context of Latin America. Chile's case has gained relevance in the region due to the highly deregulated organisation of its educational market, the quality increase in its higher education institutions, and its funding policies for higher education. This work attempts to provide an extended diagnosis of the Chilean labour market, considering the impact of these emerging issues on the educational market and policymaking. The results show that 83.6% of Chilean employees experience an educational mismatch (overeducation and undereducation); credential inflation has depreciated the value of education over five of the six occupational categories – besides the polarisation index for industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom.

Disruptive Technologies for Labor Market Information System Implementation Enhancement in the UAE: A Conceptual Perspective

In December 2019, the world learned about the first outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that first broke out in Wuhan, China. This limited outbreak in a small province of China has rapidly evolved into a global pandemic that has led to a health and economic crisis. As millions of individuals have lost their lives, others have lost their jobs due to the recession of 2020. While the skills and educational mismatch have been a prevalent problem in the UAE labor market, it is logical to assume that the global pandemic has likely increased this problem's extent. Therefore, there is an urgent need to adopt an agile, innovative solution to address the upcoming challenges in the labor markets due to the lack of skilled resources and the fear of future work amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since industry and academia have identified skills and educational mismatch as a complex and multivariate problem, the paper builds a conceptual case from a system engineering perspective to solve this problem efficiently. Based on the literature reviewed related to disruptive technologies and labor market management systems, the paper proposes a new implementation approach for an integrated labor market information system enabled by the most widely used disruptive technologies components in the UAE (Machine Learning, AI, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, and Cloud Computing). The proposed approach is considered one of the immediate course of actions required to minimize the UAE economy’s negative impact due to the presence of the skills and educational mismatch phenomena.

A Review Paper on Skills Mismatch in Developed and Developing Countries

The focus of this review research is on skill mismatch rather than educational mismatch. Specifically, this research examines the definition, extent, measurement of skill mismatch, and the impact of skill mismatch on earnings, productivity, and job satisfaction of employed individuals. Skill mismatch occurs when a worker’s possessed skills are incompatible with the required task-related skills. Skill underutilization or overskilling arises when the skills of an employed individual exceed those required to perform the job. On the other hand, skill overutilization or underskilling ensues when a worker’s skills are below those required to perform the task. The extent of skill mismatch varies from country to country and by measurement approaches: subjective (self-assessment) and objective approaches. The literature review also reveals that underskilling often results in a wage premium and overskilling in a wage penalty. In addition, skill mismatch has a negative impact on productivity and job satisfaction.

Does Educational Mismatch Affect Emigration Behaviour?

This paper uses linked Swiss administrative and survey data to examine the relationship between educational mismatch in the labour market and emigration decisions, carrying out the analysis for both Swiss native and previous immigrant workers. In turn, migrants' decisions separate returning home from onward migration to a third country. We find that undereducation is positively associated with the probability of emigration and return to the country of origin. In contrast, the reverse relationship is found between overeducation and emigration, especially among non-European immigrant workers. According to the predictions of the traditional model of migration, based on self-selection, migrants returning home are positively selected relative to migrants emigrating to other countries. We also find that immigrants from a country outside the EU27/EFTA have little incentive to return home and generally accept jobs for which they are mismatched in Switzerland. These results highlight the relevance to understand emigration behaviours in relation to the type of migrant that is most integrated, and productive, in the Swiss market, hence enabling better migration and domestic labour market policy design.

On‐the‐job training: a skill match approach to the determinants of lifelong learning

AbstractA recurrent finding in on‐the‐job training research is the ‘training gap’ in formal training: the positive correlation between initial education and continuing training. This finding is here examined from the perspective of two important distinctions: (i) between employee skill supply and job skill demand and (ii) between formal and informal training. Less‐educated workers may hold jobs with low skill requirements demanding little further formal training because the use of high skills is irrelevant, jobs that moreover provide little informal training. Exploring these issues on representative Swedish survey data using the educational mismatch (overqualified, the rightly qualified and the underqualified) model, we find that job requirements are strongly correlated with the incidence of both formal and informal training. Rather than, as has previously been argued, employee training decisions being the cause of the gap, this suggests that employer decisions regarding how to structure jobs and whom to hire are the primary factors behind the training gap.

The determinant of educational mismatch and its correlation to wages

The mismatch between educational and occupational qualifications is an issue that still frequently occurs in the Indonesian job market. This study aims to sudy the probability of educational mismatch in workers and how it was related to the wages received. The data used in this study was gained from the National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas) August 2019. The unit of analysis used are workers that have status as labor/employee/employees who are 15 years old and above. Contingency coefficient analysis was used to investigate the correlation between mismatch and workers’ wages, and multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the determinants of educational mismatch. The results showed that educational mismatch in the Indonesian labor market was still quite high, in which from a total sample of 178.085 workers / laborers, 25,79% were overeduaction and 17,98% were undereducation. The results of the contingency coefficient showed that there was a correlation between educational mismatch status and workers' wages. Then based on the result of the multinomial logistic regression test, it was found that workers with overeducation status had a greater chance of those who had a longer length of schooling, who were male and urban, while workers with undereducation status had a greater chance of those with shorter school years, who were female and live in rural areas.