Overeducation and the skills of UK graduates

By A. Chevalier, J. Lindley. Social Science Research Network, 2007

267 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary. During the early 1990s the proportion of a cohort entering higher education in the UK doubled over a short period of time. The paper investigates the effect of the expansion on graduates’ early labour market attainment, focusing on overeducation. We define overeducation by combining occupation codes and a self‐reported measure for the appropriateness of the match between qualification and the job. We therefore define three groups of graduates: matched, apparently overeducated and genuinely overeducated. This measure is well correlated with alternative definitions of overeducation. Comparing pre‐ and post‐expansion cohorts of graduates, we find with this measure that the proportion of overeducated graduates has doubled, even though overeducation wage penalties have remained stable. We do not find that type of institution affects the probability of genuine overeducation. Apparently overeducated graduates are mostly indistinguishable from matched graduates, whereas genuinely overeducated graduates principally lack non‐academic skills and suffer a large wage penalty. Individual unobserved heterogeneity differs between the three groups of graduates but controlling for it does not alter these conclusions.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Education, General Health Professions

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/50e834f8d3396254627356208dd4b9c2e0893897

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Citations in the corpus

Understanding – and Misunderstanding – Social Mobility in Britain: The Entry of the Economists, the Confusion of Politicians and the Limits of Educational Policy (2013, unknown): “…indicates that in Britain, as in other advanced societies, this is increasing and becoming a prevailing feature of labour markets rather than the temporary disequilibrium that human capital theory might allow for (Chevalier and Lindley, 2009; Green and Zhu, 2010; Wolf, 2011: part 2).”
How Useful is the Concept of Skills Mismatch? (2017, background): “10 These are McGuinness and Pouliakas (2016), Budria and Moro-Egido (2009), Chevalier and Lindley (2009), Cutillo and Di Pietro (2006), Diem (2015), Levels et al. (2014), Mavromaras et al. (2012), McGuinness (2008), McGuinness and Bennett (2007), McGuinness and Sloane (2011), Robst (2008),…”
Job Mismatches and Labour Market Outcomes: Panel Evidence on University Graduates* (2013, unknown): “Chevalier (2003) and Chevalier and Lindley (2009) consider job satisfaction as”
Graduate Employability: A Review of Conceptual and Empirical Themes (2012, background): “Further research has also pointed to experiences of graduate underemployment (Mason, 2002; Chevalier and Lindley, 2009).”
Labour Market Mismatch Among UK Graduates: An Analysis Using Reflex Data (2011, methodology): “8 The competency fields are (1) mastery of own discipline (2) knowledge of other disciplines (3) analytical thinking (4) ability to acquire new knowledge (5) ability to negotiate (6) ability to perform under pressure (7) alertness to new opportunities (8) ability to coordinate activities (9) ability”
Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market (2011, unknown): “Using a sample of almost 5,000 individuals who graduated from a higher education institution in the United Kingdom in 1985 or 1990, he finds that 10% of these individuals is apparently overschooled and 6% is genuinely overschooled.”
An Analysis of Skill Mismatch Using Direct Measures of Skills (2011, unknown): “…literature based on the concept of ‘education mismatch’, ‘qualification mismatch’ or otherwise referred to as ‘undereducation’ and ‘overeducation’ (see e.g., Oosterbeek, 2000; Miller, 2007; Sloane, 2007; Dolton & Silles, 2008; Korpi & Tåhlin, 2009; van der Meer, 2009; Chevalier & Lindley, 2009).”