IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v56y2024i55p7302-7316.html

The use of major-related knowledge by early career college graduates

Author

Listed:
  • Nick Manuel

Abstract

This paper develops a distance score that measures the extent to which college graduates work in jobs requiring knowledge that is related to their college major. For a given individual, this distance score is estimated by taking the Euclidean distance between the knowledge requirements of an individual’s occupation, and the knowledge requirements of the perfectly matching occupations that their major trains individuals for. Using this measure, it is documented that non-perfectly matched graduates of majors with high perfect match rates tend to use major-related knowledge in their jobs to a greater extent than non-perfectly matched graduates of majors with low perfect match rates. This indicates that cross-major differences in perfect match rates tend to understate cross-major differences in major-related knowledge use. Furthermore, average hourly earnings are found to be continuously decreasing in the value of the distance score. This earnings penalty persists when controlling for an individual’s demographic characteristics, as well as their college major.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Manuel, 2024. "The use of major-related knowledge by early career college graduates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(55), pages 7302-7316, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:56:y:2024:i:55:p:7302-7316
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2023.2281290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2023.2281290
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2023.2281290?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fedorets Alexandra, 2019. "Changes in Occupational Tasks and Their Association with Individual Wages and Occupational Mobility," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 295-328, December.
    2. Arnaud Chevalier & Joanne Lindley, 2009. "Overeducation and the skills of UK graduates," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(2), pages 307-337, April.
    3. Abel, Jaison R. & Deitz, Richard, 2015. "Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 14-24.
    4. Queralt Capsada-Munsech, 2019. "Measuring Overeducation: Incidence, Correlation and Overlaps Across Indicators and Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 279-301, August.
    5. Meroni, Elena Claudia & Vera-Toscano, Esperanza, 2017. "The persistence of overeducation among recent graduates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 120-143.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hanan Morsy & Adamon N. Mukasa, 2019. "Working Paper 326 - Youth Jobs, Skill and Educational Mismatches in Africa," Working Paper Series 2452, African Development Bank.
    2. Maite Bl'azquez Cuesta & Marco A. P'erez Navarro & Roc'io S'anchez-Mangas, 2024. "Overeducation under different macroeconomic conditions: The case of Spanish university graduates," Papers 2407.04437, arXiv.org.
    3. Morsy, Hanan & Mukasa, Adamon, 2019. "Youth Jobs, Skill and Educational Mismatches in Africa," MPRA Paper 100394, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. He, Yu & Peng, Xiujian & Xu, Hangtian, 2020. "Overeducation, market recognition, and effective labour supply," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    6. Petya Ilieva-Trichkova & Pepka Boyadjieva, 2021. "The Fragile Axes of Life: A Capability Approach Perspective towards Graduates’ Education–Job Mismatches and Subjective Well-Being," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-18, July.
    7. Florian Fouquet, 2024. "Inadéquations emploi-diplôme en début de carrière : une situation persistante trois ans après l’entrée sur le marché du travail," Post-Print hal-04799735, HAL.
    8. Cedrick Kalemasi Mosengo & Christian Zamo Akono, 2024. "Effect of Informal Employment on Overeducation in Developing Countries with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/004, African Governance and Development Institute..
    9. Jaison R. Abel & Richard Deitz, 2017. "Underemployment in the Early Careers of College Graduates following the Great Recession," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Skills, and Technical Change: Implications for Future US GDP Growth, pages 149-181, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Michela Vecchi & Catherine Robinson & Maja Savic & Marina Romiti, 2023. "Vertical and Horizontal Mismatch in the UK: Are Graduates' Skills a Good Fit for Their Jobs?," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 548, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    11. Cedrick Kalemasi Mosengo & Christian Zamo Akono, 2024. "Effect of Informal Employment on Overeducation in Developing Countries with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," Working Papers 24/004, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    12. Hanan Morsy & Adamon N. Mukasa, 2020. "‘Mind the mismatch?’ Incidence, drivers, and persistence of African youths' skill and educational mismatches," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 32(S1), pages 5-19, November.
    13. José M. Arranz & Carlos García-Serrano, 2024. "Persistence of Overeducation Among Young Workers and Business Cycle," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 769-793, September.
    14. Shengjun Jiang, 2024. "Reasons for college major-job mismatch and subsequent job mobility and earnings growth," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(3), pages 1275-1301, September.
    15. Pepka Boyadjieva & Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, 2025. "Vertical Educational (Mis)match and Inclusive Growth: Theoretical Conceptualizations and Evidence from a European Perspective," Societies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, April.
    16. Michela Vecchi & Maja Savic & Marina Romiti, 2021. "Skill mismatch among UK graduates," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2021-11, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    17. Manuel, Nick, 2024. "Does the labour market value field of study specific knowledge? An alignment score based approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. Thomas Couppié & Dominique Épiphane & Olivier Joseph & Elsa Personnaz, 2024. "Après la formation initiale : les vicissitudes du parcours professionnel," Post-Print halshs-04891851, HAL.
    19. Marco Pecoraro, 2014. "Is There Still a Wage Penalty for Being Overeducated But Well-matched in Skills? A Panel Data Analysis of a Swiss Graduate Cohort," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(3), pages 309-337, September.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:56:y:2024:i:55:p:7302-7316. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.