Education as a Shield Against the Adverse Shock of Motherhood: Gender, Parenthood and Overeducation Among Highly and Mid-Educated British Workers

This research improves our understanding of overeducation by highlighting its risks among middle-educated workers, especially the specific risk that motherhood may pose for job mismatch among them, compared to highly educated women. It employs random-effects and Heckman selection models with Mundlak correctors on 14 waves of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) to explore the relationship between overeducation, gender, and parenthood among middle- and highly educated employees. Overall, women are found to have a lower risk of overeducation compared to men. However, becoming a mother and having more children negatively impact the status of middle-educated women in comparison to both male workers and highly educated women. Additional evidence from the European Jobs and Skills Survey (2021) shows that jobs held by middle-educated individuals offer less job discretion than those held by highly educated workers. This lack of discretion may hinder the development of firm-specific or occupational skills that would enable women to maintain or enhance their job status after becoming mothers or having additional children.