Overqualification of graduates: assessing the role of family background

Abstract

Overqualification signals a mismatch between jobs' educational requirements and workers' qualifications implying potential productivity losses at the macro and the micro level. This study explores how the family background of German graduates affects the probability to hold a job that does not require tertiary education, i.e. to be overqualified. Potential pathways of the family background effects are discussed and proxy variables for the mediating factors ability and skills, study characteristics, social capital, financial capital, and aspiration are incorporated into the empirical analysis. Graduates from high status families are found to be less likely to be overqualified. The unconditional social overqualification gap amounts to 7.4 percentage points. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions of the overqualification gap show that differences in ability and skills, study characteristics, and social capital are important mediators of the family background effects.

Factors Associated with Overeducation Among Recent Graduates During Labour Market Integration: The Case of Catalonia (Spain)

“…In all cases, the positive coefficients and the odds show that there is a clear negative relationship between the parents' level of studies and the probability of overeducation: the lower the parents' level of studies, the higher the probability of overeducation. Therefore, this result confirms those obtained by above-mentioned authors such as Capsada-Munsech (2015), Gaeta (2015) and Erdsiek (2016), among others.…”

“…This result shows that an environment with a higher cultural level forms a better quality framework for strategic decisions in terms of facilitating graduates' choices about their labour market integration process from a short-and long-term professional perspective. In this regard, it coincides with the results of Capsada-Munsech (2015), Gaeta (2015) and Erdsiek (2016), and, from the perspective of social capital, it coincides with Verhaest and Omey (2010). Also in this case, as in the case of career development, universities could have an impact through mentoring or guidance for labour market integration.…”

“…Authors such as Capsada-Munsech (2015), Gaeta (2015) and Erdsiek (2016) have considered the family sociocultural and economic context as a relevant factor in the design of graduates' professional career strategies. Elements that are unrelated to their academic training but that form part of their environment have been considered to be related to the probability of overeducation.…”

“…In this regard, see references from studies such asVerdugo and Verdugo (1989), Capsada-Munsech (2015),Erdsiek (2016) orVerhaest and Verhofstadt (2016).…”

Dynamics of overqualification: evidence from the early career of graduates

“…The family background of graduates may also affect the probability to find an adequate job at the outset of the career cycle (Erdsiek 2016). Social background may be related to the individuals' motivation or aspiration, may provide advantageous social networks for finding promising jobs, or may ease the pressure to take a job offer due to financial constraints.…”