Education, Mental Health, and Education–Labor Market Misfit

Abstract

Higher-educated people experience enhanced mental health. We ponder whether the mental health benefits of educational attainment are limitless. At the individual level, we look at the impact of job-education mismatch. At the societal level, we hypothesize that diminishing economic returns on education limit its mental health benefits. Using a subsample of individuals aged 20 to 65 years (N = 28,288) from 21 countries in the European Social Survey (ESS 2006), we estimate the impact on depressive symptoms of characteristics at both the employee level (years of education and job-education mismatch) and the labor market/country level (the gap between the nontertiary and tertiary educated in terms of unemployment risks and earnings). The results show that educational attainment produces mental health benefits in most European countries. However, in some of the countries, these benefits are limited or even completely eliminated by education-labor market misfit.

Educational expansion and the education gradient in health: A hierarchical age-period-cohort analysis

“…Nonetheless, the need for comparative research is obvious with regard to this time-related change. The general trend of slightly falling health returns on education could be counterbalanced by country-specific dynamics (Bracke et al, 2014), as European countries might substantially differ with regard to the expansion of tertiary education (Croce & Ghignoni, 2012) and occupational upgrading (Fernández-Macías & Hurley, 2008). Hence, further research could aim to explain the between-cohort variation by introducing country-and cohort-specific characteristics (e.g.…”

“…From the 1960s onward, participation in higher education has increased substantially (Groot & Van den Brink, 2000). In many European countries, this massive growth in tertiary education has not been accompanied by an equivalent upgrade to the labor market (Bracke et al, 2013;Bracke et al, 2014). The discrepancy between the supply of and demand for highly-qualified workers has led to the phenomenon of 'overeducation' (Freeman, 1976); a situation in which individuals cannot fully reap the economic benefits of their educational attainment.…”

“…The discrepancy between the supply of and demand for highly-qualified workers has led to the phenomenon of 'overeducation' (Freeman, 1976); a situation in which individuals cannot fully reap the economic benefits of their educational attainment. In times of intensified job competition, a substantial number of highly-educated employees end up in jobs that actually require lower qualifications, and hence receive limited health returns (Bracke et al, 2013;Bracke et al, 2014). According to Sicherman and Galor (1990), over-education at the individual level is only a temporary situation.…”

“…The misfit between the labor market and education is generally considered a structural problem (Gesthuizen & Wolbers, 2010) that adversely affects all people with a similar level of education, irrespective of their own level of job-education mismatch (Bracke et al, 2014). Slightly falling returns on education in the labor market may have reduced the health benefits it provides.…”

“…Education is measured by years of full-time education completed, rather than highest educational level attained, as this indicator enhances the comparability of education systems between countries (Berigan & Irwin, 2011;Bracke et al, 2014). In addition, to reduce the influence of outliers, cases who score higher than the country-year specific mean plus three standard deviations are removed (Bracke et al, 2013).…”