Education mismatch in Europe at the turn of the century: Measurement, intensity and evolution

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to present the stylized facts of over-education among European graduates over time (1998-2013), 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 over-education, 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. Paper type. Research paper.