IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4280.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Educational Mismatch: Are High-Skilled Immigrants Really Working at High-Skilled Jobs and the Price They Pay If They Aren't?

Author

Listed:
  • Chiswick, Barry R.

    (George Washington University)

  • Miller, Paul W.

    (Curtin University)

Abstract

This paper examines the incidence of the mismatch of the educational attainment and the occupation of employment, and the impact of this mismatch on the earnings, of high-skilled adult male immigrants in the US labor market. Analyses for high-skilled adult male native-born workers are also presented for comparison purposes. The results show that over-education is widespread in the high-skilled US labor market, both for immigrants and the native born. The extent of over-education declines with duration in the US as high-skilled immigrants obtain jobs commensurate with their educational level. Years of schooling that are above that which is usual for a worker's occupation are associated with very low increases in earnings. Indeed, in the first 10 to 20 years in the US years of over-education among high-skilled workers have a negative effect on earnings. This ineffective use of surplus education appears across all occupations and high-skilled education levels. Although schooling serves as a pathway to occupational attainment, earnings appear to be more closely linked to a worker's occupation than to the individual's level of schooling.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2009. "Educational Mismatch: Are High-Skilled Immigrants Really Working at High-Skilled Jobs and the Price They Pay If They Aren't?," IZA Discussion Papers 4280, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4280
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4280.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hartog, Joop, 2000. "Over-education and earnings: where are we, where should we go?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 131-147, April.
    2. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2008. "Why is the payoff to schooling smaller for immigrants?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1317-1340, December.
    3. Richard R. Verdugo & Naomi Turner Verdugo, 1989. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Earnings: Some Additional Findings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(4), pages 629-643.
    4. Stephen Rubb, 2003. "Post-College Schooling, Overeducation, and Hourly Earnings in the United States," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 53-72.
    5. Cohn, Elchanan & Khan, Shahina P., 1995. "The wage effects of overschooling revisited," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 67-76, March.
    6. Russell W. Rumberger, 1987. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Productivity and Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50.
    7. Barry Chiswick, 1999. "Are Immigrants Favorably Self-Selected?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 181-185, May.
    8. Duncan, Greg J. & Hoffman, Saul D., 1981. "The incidence and wage effects of overeducation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 75-86, February.
    9. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2010. "Does the choice of reference levels of education matter in the ORU earnings equation?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1076-1085, December.
    10. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2007. "The International Transferability of Immigrants’ Human Capital Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 2670, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Vahey, Shaun P., 2000. "The great Canadian training robbery: evidence on the returns to educational mismatch," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 219-227, April.
    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. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2010. "Does the choice of reference levels of education matter in the ORU earnings equation?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1076-1085, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Prateek Kukreja, 2019. "Skill Mismatch and Returns to Education in Manufacturing: A Case of India’s Textile and Clothing Industry," Working Papers id:13003, eSocialSciences.
    4. Matloob Piracha & Florin Vadean, 2013. "Migrant educational mismatch and the labor market," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 9, pages 176-192, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. V. Jacobs & F. Rycx & M. Volral, 2022. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 459-501, November.
    6. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2008. "Why is the payoff to schooling smaller for immigrants?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1317-1340, December.
    7. Ian W. Li & Paul W. Miller, 2015. "Overeducation and earnings in the Australian graduate labour market: an application of the Vahey model," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 63-83, February.
    8. Rubb, S., 2003. "Overeducation in the labor market: a comment and re-analysis of a meta-analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 621-629, December.
    9. Prateek Kukreja, 2018. "Skill Mismatch and Returns to Education in Manufacturing: A Case of India's Textile and Clothing Industry," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Working Paper 364, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India.
    10. Derby Voon & Paul W. Miller, 2005. "Undereducation and Overeducation in the Australian Labour Market," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(s1), pages 22-33, August.
    11. Wen, Le & Maani, Sholeh A., 2023. "Earnings Penalty of Educational Mismatch: A Comparison of Alternative Methods of Assessing Over-Education," IZA Discussion Papers 15943, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Alma Espino, 2011. "Evaluación de los desajustes entre oferta y demanda laboral por calificaciones en el mercado laboral de Uruguay," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, November.
    13. Altorjai, Szilvia, 2013. "Over-qualification of immigrants in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-11, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    14. L. Cattani & G. Guidetti & G. Pedrini, 2014. "Assessing the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among Italian graduates using a new measure for educational requirements," Working Papers wp939, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    15. Edvard N. Larsen & Adrian F. Rogne & Gunn E. Birkelund, 2018. "Perfect for the Job? Overqualification of Immigrants and their Descendants in the Norwegian Labor Market," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 78-103.
    16. Boll, Christina & Leppin, Julian Sebastian, 2013. "Unterwertige Beschäftigung von Akademikerinnen und Akademikern: Umfang, Ursachen, Einkommenseffekte und Beitrag zur geschlechtsspezifischen Lohnlücke," HWWI Policy Papers 75, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    17. Christina Boll & Julian Sebastian Leppin, 2016. "Differential Overeducation in East and West Germany: Extending Frank's Theory on Economic Returns Changes the Picture of Disadvantaged Women," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(4), pages 455-504, December.
    18. repec:kap:iaecre:v:11:y:2005:i:1:p:93-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Orbay, Benan & Aydede, Yigit, 2015. "Educational mismatch and the cost of underutilization in Turkish labour markets," MPRA Paper 65713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Abbi Kedir & Andri Kyrizi & Francisco Martinez-Mora, 2012. "Signalling and Productivity Effects of Overeducation: Is It Really a Waste of Resources?," Discussion Papers in Economics 12/19, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    21. Quinn, Michael A. & Rubb, Stephen, 2006. "Mexico's labor market: The importance of education-occupation matching on wages and productivity in developing countries," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 147-156, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    earnings; schooling; immigrants; rates of return; skill; occupations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp4280. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.