IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6414.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Migrant Educational Mismatch and the Labour Market

Author

Listed:
  • Piracha, Matloob

    (University of Kent)

  • Vadean, Florin

    (University of Kent)

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on educational mismatch of immigrants in the labour market of destination countries. It draws on the theoretical arguments postulated in the labour economics literature and discusses their extension in the analysis of the causes and effects of immigrants' educational mismatch in the destination country. Relevant empirical approaches have been presented which show that immigrants are in general more over-educated than natives and that the reasons for those range from imperfect transferability of human capital to discrimination to perhaps lack of innate ability. It then assesses the state of current literature and proposes an agenda for further research.

Suggested Citation

  • Piracha, Matloob & Vadean, Florin, 2012. "Migrant Educational Mismatch and the Labour Market," IZA Discussion Papers 6414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6414.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2009. "Educational Mismatch: Are High-Skilled Immigrants Really Working at High-Skilled Jobs and the Price They Pay If They Aren't?," IZA Discussion Papers 4280, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hartog, Joop, 2000. "Over-education and earnings: where are we, where should we go?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 131-147, April.
    3. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2008. "Why is the payoff to schooling smaller for immigrants?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1317-1340, December.
    4. Robert Hierländer & Peter Huber & Anna Iara & Michael Landesmann & Klaus Nowotny & Mary O'Mahony & Fei Peng & Catherine Robinson & Robert Stehrer, 2010. "Migration, Skills and Productivity," wiiw Research Reports 365, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    5. F Green & Steven McIntosh & Anna Vignoles, 1999. "Overeducation and Skills - Clarifying the Concepts," CEP Discussion Papers dp0435, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Séamus McGuinness, 2006. "Overeducation in the Labour Market," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 387-418, July.
    7. Kiker, B. F. & Santos, Maria C. & de Oliveira, M. Mendes, 1997. "Overeducation and undereducation: Evidence for Portugal," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 111-125, April.
    8. Gil S. Epstein & Ira N. Gang, 2010. "Migration and Culture," Working Papers 2010-17, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    9. Richard R. Verdugo & Naomi Turner Verdugo, 1989. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Earnings: Some Additional Findings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(4), pages 629-643.
    10. Green, Colin & Kler, Parvinder & Leeves, Gareth, 2007. "Immigrant overeducation: Evidence from recent arrivals to Australia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 420-432, August.
    11. Dolton, Peter J. & Silles, Mary A., 2008. "The effects of over-education on earnings in the graduate labour market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 125-139, April.
    12. Sicherman, Nachum & Galor, Oded, 1990. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 169-192, February.
      • Galor, Oded & Sicherman, Nachum, 1988. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Working Papers 51, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    13. Hartog, Joop, 1980. "Earnings and Capability Requirements," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(2), pages 230-240, May.
    14. Jacques Poot & Steven Stillman, 2010. "The importance of heterogeneity when examining immigrant education-occupation mismatch: evidence from New Zealand," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1023, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    15. Matloob Piracha & Massimiliano Tani & Florin Vadean, 2012. "Immigrant over- and under-education: the role of home country labour market experience," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Esteve Sanromá & Raúl Ramos & Hipólito Simón, 2015. "Portability of Human Capital and Immigrant Overeducation in Spain," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 34(2), pages 223-241, April.
    17. Juan J. Dolado & Marcel Jansen & Juan F. Jimeno, 2009. "On‐the‐Job Search in a Matching Model with Heterogeneous Jobs and Workers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 200-228, January.
    18. McGoldrick, KimMarie & Robst, John, 1996. "Gender Differences in Overeducation: A Test of the Theory of Differential Overqualification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 280-284, May.
    19. Sicherman, Nachum, 1991. ""Overeducation" in the Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(2), pages 101-122, April.
    20. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2009. "The international transferability of immigrants' human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 162-169, April.
    21. Quinn, Michael A. & Rubb, Stephen, 2006. "Mexico's labor market: The importance of education-occupation matching on wages and productivity in developing countries," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 147-156, April.
    22. Mavromaras, Kostas & McGuinness, Seamus, 2012. "Overskilling dynamics and education pathways," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 619-628.
    23. Russell W. Rumberger, 1987. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Productivity and Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50.
    24. H. Battu & P. J. Sloane, 2004. "Over‐Education and Ethnic Minorities in Britain," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(4), pages 535-559, July.
    25. Duncan, Greg J. & Hoffman, Saul D., 1981. "The incidence and wage effects of overeducation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 75-86, February.
    26. Sicherman, Nachum & Galor, Oded, 1990. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 169-192, February.
    27. Chiswick, Barry R, 1978. "The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 897-921, October.
    28. Gautier, Pieter A, 2002. "Unemployment and Search Externalities in a Model with Heterogeneous Jobs and Workers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 69(273), pages 21-40, February.
    29. Tsai, Yuping, 2010. "Returns to overeducation: A longitudinal analysis of the U.S. labor market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 606-617, August.
    30. Stark, Oded & Taylor, J Edward, 1991. "Migration Incentives, Migration Types: The Role of Relative Deprivation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1163-1178, September.
    31. James Ted McDonald & M. Rebecca Valenzuela, 2009. "The Impact of Skill Mismatch among Migrants on Remittance Behaviour," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 242, McMaster University.
    32. Leuven, Edwin & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 2011. "Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 283-326, Elsevier.
    33. Kiker, B. F. & Santos, Maria C., 1991. "Human capital and earnings in Portugal," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 187-203, September.
    34. Belman, Dale & Heywood, John S, 1997. "Sheepskin Effects by Cohort: Implications of Job Matching in a Signaling Model," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 623-637, October.
    35. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2007. "The International Transferability of Immigrants’ Human Capital Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 2670, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    36. Hartog, Joop & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 1988. "Education, allocation and earnings in the Netherlands: 0verschooling?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 185-194, April.
    37. Chantal Nielsen, 2011. "Immigrant over-education: evidence from Denmark," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 499-520, April.
    38. Groot, Wim & Maassen van den Brink, Henriette, 2000. "Overeducation in the labor market: a meta-analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 149-158, April.
    39. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp110 is not listed on IDEAS
    40. Sanromá, Esteban & Ramos, Raul & Simón, Hipólito, 2008. "The Portability of Human Capital and Immigrant Assimilation: Evidence for Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 3649, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luciana Méndez-Errico, 2018. "Immigrants over-education and wage penalty. Evidence from Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 18-16, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    2. Dequiedt, Vianney & Zenou, Yves, 2013. "International migration, imperfect information, and brain drain," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 62-78.
    3. Eleni Kalfa & Matloob Piracha, 2017. "Immigrants’ educational mismatch and the penalty of over-education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 462-481, September.
    4. Costanza Biavaschi & Klaus Zimmermann, 2014. "Eastern partnership migrants in Germany: outcomes, potentials and challenges," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-20, December.
    5. Magdalena ULCELUSE, 2020. "Self-employment as a stepping stone to better labor market matching: a comparison between immigrants and natives," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(4), pages 479-501, December.
    6. Alaverdyan, Sevak & Zaharieva, Anna, 2022. "Immigration, social networks and occupational mismatch," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    7. Biavaschi, Costanza & Elsner, Benjamin, 2013. "Let's Be Selective about Migrant Self-Selection," IZA Discussion Papers 7865, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Brand, Claus & Obstbaum, Meri & Coenen, Günter & Sondermann, David & Lydon, Reamonn & Ajevskis, Viktors & Hammermann, Felix & Angino, Siria & Hernborg, Nils & Basso, Henrique & Hertweck, Matthias & Bi, 2021. "Employment and the conduct of monetary policy in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 275, European Central Bank.
    9. Matloob Piracha & Massimiliano Tani & Florin Vadean, 2012. "Immigrant over- and under-education: the role of home country labour market experience," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
    10. Elsner, Benjamin & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2013. "10 Years After: EU Enlargement, Closed Borders, and Migration to Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 7130, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Sandra Nieto & Alessia Matano & Raul Ramos, 2013. "“Skill mismatches in the EU: Immigrants vs. natives”," AQR Working Papers 201310, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Oct 2013.
    12. Biavaschi, Costanza & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2013. "Costs and Benefits of Labour Mobility between the EU and the Eastern Partnership Countries: Country Study on Germany," IZA Policy Papers 72, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Sudipa Sarkar, 2017. "Employment polarization and over-education in Germany, Spain, Sweden and UK," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 435-463, August.
    14. Stefan Jestl & Michael Landesmann & Sandra M. Leitner, 2015. "Migrants and Natives in EU Labour Markets: Mobility and Job-Skill Mismatch Patterns," wiiw Research Reports 403, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    15. Xiangbo Liu & Theodore Palivos & Xiaomeng Zhang, 2017. "Immigration, Skill Heterogeneity, And Qualification Mismatch," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1231-1264, July.
    16. Falcke, Swantje & Meng, Christoph & Nollen, Romy, 2016. "Educational mismatches for second generation migrants. An analysis of applied science graduates in the Netherlands," Research Memorandum 028, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    17. Pernilla Joona & Nabanita Gupta & Eskil Wadensjö, 2014. "Overeducation among immigrants in Sweden: incidence, wage effects and state dependence," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Stuart Campbell, 2013. "Over-education among A8 migrants in the UK," DoQSS Working Papers 13-09, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    19. Rosario Aldunate & Gabriela Contreras & Claudia De la Huerta & Matías Tapia, 2019. "Characterization of the Recent Immigration to Chile," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 830, Central Bank of Chile.
    20. Falcke, Swantje & Meng, Christoph & Nollen, Romy, 2016. "Educational mismatches for second generation migrants. An analysis of applied science graduates in the Netherlands," ROA Research Memorandum 010, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    21. Eleni Kalfa & Matloob Piracha, 2018. "Social networks and the labour market mismatch," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 877-914, July.
    22. K. Burggraeve & C. Piton, 2016. "The economic consequences of the flow of refugees into Belgium," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 43-61, June.
    23. Ulceluse, Magdalena, 2018. "Self-employment as a stepping stone to better labour market matching: a comparison between immigrants and natives," GLO Discussion Paper Series 219, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    24. Van Wolleghem, Pierre Georges & De Angelis, Marina & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2019. "Education-occupation mismatch of migrants in the Italian labour market: the effect of social networks," GLO Discussion Paper Series 398, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    25. Vincent Corluy & Gerlinde Verbist, 2014. "Can education bridge the gap? Education and the employment position of immigrants in Belgium," ImPRovE Working Papers 14/02, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eleni Kalfa & Matloob Piracha, 2017. "Immigrants’ educational mismatch and the penalty of over-education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 462-481, September.
    2. L. Cattani & G. Guidetti & G. Pedrini, 2014. "Assessing the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among Italian graduates using a new measure for educational requirements," Working Papers wp939, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    3. Schwientek, Caroline, 2016. "Are immigrants overeducated in Germany? Determinants and wage effects of educational mismatch," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2016, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    4. Philippe Wanner & Marco Pecoraro & Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Does Educational Mismatch Affect Emigration Behaviour?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 959-995, November.
    5. Iñaki Iriondo & Teodosio Pérez-Amaral, 2013. "The Effect of Educational Mismatch on Wages Using European Panel Data," Working Papers 700, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Clemente Pignatti Morano, 2014. "The determinants of overeducation: Evidence from the Italian labour market," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 9, in: Adela García Aracil & Isabel Neira Gómez (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 9, edition 1, volume 9, chapter 35, pages 681-698, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    7. Iñaki Iriondo & Teodosio Pérez-Amaral, 2013. "The Effect of Educational Mismatch on Wages Using European Panel Data," Working Papers 700, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    8. V. Jacobs & F. Rycx & M. Volral, 2022. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 459-501, November.
    9. David Boto-García & Marta Escalonilla, 2022. "University education, mismatched jobs: are there gender differences in the drivers of overeducation?," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(3), pages 861-902, October.
    10. Paula Herrera-Idárraga & Enrique López-Bazo & Elisabet Motellón, 2012. "Informality and overeducation in the labor market of a developing country," Working Papers XREAP2012-20, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Nov 2012.
    11. Sara Flisi & Valentina Goglio & Elena Claudia Meroni & Margarida Rodrigues & Esperanza Vera-Toscano, 2017. "Measuring Occupational Mismatch: Overeducation and Overskill in Europe—Evidence from PIAAC," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1211-1249, April.
    12. Luca Cattani & Giovanni Guidetti & Giulio Pedrini, 2018. "Overeducation among Italian graduates: do different measures diverge?," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(2), pages 491-521, August.
    13. Carroll, David & Tani, Massimiliano, 2013. "Over-education of recent higher education graduates: New Australian panel evidence," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 207-218.
    14. Merve Cim & Michael Kind & Jan Kleibrink, 2020. "Occupational mismatch of immigrants in Europe: the role of education and cognitive skills," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 96-112, January.
    15. Pernilla Joona & Nabanita Gupta & Eskil Wadensjö, 2014. "Overeducation among immigrants in Sweden: incidence, wage effects and state dependence," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-23, December.
    16. Baktash, Mehrzad B., 2023. "Overeducation, Performance Pay and Wages: Evidence from Germany," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1327, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Valentine Jacobs, 2021. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," DULBEA Working Papers 23562, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Tani, Massimiliano, 2012. "Does Immigration Policy Affect the Education-Occupation Mismatch? Evidence from Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 6937, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    20. Matloob Piracha & Massimiliano Tani & Florin Vadean, 2012. "Immigrant over- and under-education: the role of home country labour market experience," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education-occupation mismatch; immigration;

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6414. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.