Social networks and the labour market mismatch

Abstract

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Do Ethnic Networks Ameliorate Education–Occupation Mismatch?

“…My results contradict Kalfa and Piracha (2018), who found that ethnic concentration increases the probability of overqualification, particularly for females. While there are many differences in their study, such as the different juridical migration systems in Australia and Germany and the different compositions of the foreign‐born populations, three main transmission channels explain both a positive effect from ethnic networks and the different results by gender.…”

“…The significant effect of the foreign share in Model 1 becomes insignificant after controlling for the ethnic share in Models 3 and 4 18 . Instead of a continuous measurement of occupational mismatch, I adopt the approach of Kalfa and Piracha (2018) and model a binary variable to capture the probability of overqualification. This tackles the disadvantage that undereducation and overeducation are conflated into one variable in equation [1].…”

“…To the best of my knowledge, two paper examine the effect of ethnic networks on occupational mismatch. Kalfa and Piracha (2018) use the Households Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data and apply a dynamic random‐effects probit model. They tackle the problem of endogeneity in social capital and ethnic concentration by using lags of the explaining variables, finding that ethnic concentration significantly increases the incidence of overeducation.…”

“…This paper makes several contributions. First, it tackles the novel question of whether ethnic networks affect education–occupation mismatch, which has barely been examined so far (to my knowledge, the exceptions are Charpin, 2014; Kalfa and Piracha, 2018). Concerning the definition of education–occupation mismatch, this paper only considers foreign‐born immigrants in measuring overqualification, without including native‐born Germans.…”

Immigration System, Labor Market Structures, and Overeducation of High-Skilled Immigrants in the United States and Canada

“…With respect to immigrant–native difference, immigrants in each destination country tend to be more vulnerable to overeducation than are native workers because of their more circumscribed social networks (Kalfa and Piracha 2018) and because of human capital’s limited transferability (Chiswick and Miller 2009). Social networks provide information about opportunities to job seekers and make referrals about prospective hires to employers (Fernandez, Castilla, and Moore 2000).…”