Education-job mismatches and their impacts on job satisfaction: An analysis among university graduates in Cambodia

Education-job mismatches, especially overeducation or vertical mismatch, are generally found to lower the worker's job satisfaction, which may generate the counter-productive behaviors such as high rates of absenteeism and turnover in developed countries. The purpose of this article is to examine the impacts of educational mismatches from their both forms and dimensions (match, overeducation, horizontal mismatch and double mismatch) on the job satisfaction among university graduates in Cambodia. To deal with the sample selection bias owing to the unobserved job satisfaction of unemployed graduates, this study applies the Heckman probit model on a survey conducted with nineteen higher education institutions in Cambodia. Results indicate that the both forms of mismatches adversely affect the job satisfaction and the consequence is stronger if graduates suffer both vertical and horizontal mismatches. This suggests that the literature has to focus on all forms and dimensions of mismatches when examining their impacts on the individual outcomes in the labor market. The findings also underline the importance of improvement in the quality of education-job matching in Cambodia because the possible counter-productive behaviors due to inadequate education-employment may affect the productivity of firms and thus limit their development.