Educational mismatch in Europe at the turn of the century

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to present the stylized facts of over-education among European graduates over time (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013), paying special attention to the measurement issues. Design/methodology/approach. The authors use two different sources, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012, and the European Union Labour Force Survey 1998-2013, with two different aims. We employ the first one to make a detailed analysis of the different forms of measuring over-education and its implications in terms of the result obtained. The analysis of the second one responds to study the evolution and characteristics of over-education in Europe. Findings. In first place, the paper provides evidence of the high level of sensitivity of the level of measured over-education to the type of methodology used. Such difference is even higher when we focus on skills versus educational mismatch. The work also shows how with all their shortcomings, the measures of over-education used in the analysis point to the existence of convergence in over-education levels among the European countries of the sample (only interrupted by the crisis), in a context of reduction of over-education rates in many countries. Practical implications. Researchers should be particularly careful when estimating overeducation, because of the strong implications in terms of the so different results obtained when choosing between competing methods. Originality/value. The analysis abound in the implications of the use of different methodologies of estimating over-education in terms of both size and ranking among European countries. The production of long-run and updated estimates of over-education for a large sample of countries using a homogenous database and different estimation methods.

Regional Patterns of Social Differentiation in Visegrád Countries

“…Moreover, the current data suggest that the policies aimed at promoting education adopted by the majority of CEE countries after the transition resulted in the proportion of 25-34-year-old adults with at least secondary educational rising to more than 90%. Further, taking demographic developments and the fact that a remarkably high proportion of secondary school graduates continue their studies at a university into account, a not insignificant proportion of university graduates accept jobs for which they are over-educated [Ortiz Gervasi and McGuinness 2018;Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente et al 2018] or are unable to find a job at all. Consequently, how well educational attainment serves as a proxy for social stratification in the region in the future is questionable, particularly in the case of 'Generation Z' onwards.…”

Una introducción a la reforma laboral española de 2022

“…But, as it was pointed before, what is certainly a fact is that hyperflexible regulation of temporary contracts available since the mid-1980s has been unable to lead Spanish labour market even close to full employment and has been even less capable of creating enough quality jobs. As it was been shown, the Spanish economy has kept one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe (currently is 13.5%) and over 1/3 of workers have a job for which they are overqualified (Muñoz de Bustillo et al, 2018). We could say that overqualification has been 16 The pattern is similar in the months before the approval of the reform, with an average share of open-ended contracts of all contracts signed the last quarter of 2021 (5.6 million) of 11,7% (SEPE, Datos Estadísticos de Contratos).…”

Drivers of skill mismatch among Italian graduates: The role of personality traits

“…Therefore, we rely on two instruments: first, a self-assessed measure of health status, since health problems might lead to discontinuous employment or inactivity; second, we use marital status and add a dummy for married individuals, both alone and interacted with gender. This takes into account the different employment incentives of married people and the constraints faced by married females (Michaud and Tatsiramos 2005). The selection equation takes the following form:…”