Do Educational Mismatches Influence Job Satisfaction and On-The-Job Search in Algeria?

This paper considers the effects of educational mismatches on two outcomes. They are job satisfaction and on the-job search in Algeria. We use Algerian Labor Force Surveys for the years 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2016. We also estimate all our model on the pooled data (2003-2016) to check the robustness of the results and to test for the effect of educational mismatch on job satisfaction and on the job search over time, we analyze men and women separately. We examine the effect of educational mismatch on job satisfaction and on the job, search using probit model. In all models, we introduce as control variables the following blocks of variables: 1) socio-demographic characteristics, 2) human capital and 3) labor market characteristics. For the models on job satisfaction and on the job search we add the variable educational mismatch. The salient findings are that the job satisfaction and, on the job search are strongly influenced by educational mismatch and some job characteristics for both men and women. We find that over education reduces likelihood of job satisfaction while undereducation increases likelihood of job satisfaction. Further, over-education increases the likelihood of frequent job changes for both men and women while under-education does not affect the likelihood of job changes for men but it reduces the likelihood of job changes for women.