The paper devises a new method of calculating whether individuals are over educated using a parametric model. This new method is applied to men and women from different ethnic groups using data drawn from 4 pooled cross-sections of the UK Labour Force Survey. Calibrated against existing mean-mode methods, the new approach leads to lower levels of over education, more so for men than women. The model is then extended to include non-qualification elements of human capital such as employment experience and job related skills. Model specifications are further varied by educational qualification measures, the presence of children and gender, as well as allowing for full gender segregation by estimating a single equation (pooled men and women) and separate equations (men and women separately). The results show that the while the overall extent of over education has similarities with earlier studies (eg. over-education is more prevalent amongst women than men), the differences between ethnic groups, as well as between minority ethnic groups and White employees, are far less than that found in some earlier studies. Black African men and women had the greatest amount of over education, followed by Chinese women. Bangladeshi women had the lowest rates among women. It is probably possible to explain almost all of the gap in over education rates between white and minority women and men by a combination of factors; differences in working part time, being temporarily over educated and by differences in the quality of educational qualifications.
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Paper provided by The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
2007003.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Akerlof, George A, 1998.
"Men without Children,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 287-309, March.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Arnaud Chevalier, 2003.
"Measuring Over-education,"
Economica,
London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 70(279), pages 509-531, 08.
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