What Do Educational Mismatches Tell Us About Skill Mismatches? A Cross‐country Analysis

Abstract

The relationship between higher education and employment is commonly interpreted in terms of the extent to which the higher education sector is providing graduates with the knowledge and skills to match employment needs. It is assumed that a mismatch between working in a job and level or field of education limits the use of skills, with adverse effects on both productivity and earnings. This article examines this assumption on the basis of five countries from the European graduate survey (CHEERS data). Although the analysis shows that educational and skill mismatches are indeed related, mismatches by no means imply mismatches between available and required knowledge and skills. The results indicate that traditional approaches of mismatches have to be adapted to more flexible forms of relationships between higher education and work.

Measuring Occupational Mismatch: Overeducation and Overskill in Europe—Evidence from PIAAC

“…First, to our knowledge, this is the first study to compare such a large number of measures of overeducation and overskilling. A few other studies have conducted a similar line of investigation by comparing different measures with a common dataset (Verhaest and Omey 2006;Allen and van der Velden 2001;Allen and de Weert 2007;McIntosh 2007 andMavromaras et al 2007a, b). Our conclusions corroborate and extend these findings by providing an analysis on a much broader sample (i.e., one not limited to graduates), with a wider set of mismatch indicators, and for 17 European countries.…”

Universidad Y Desarrollo Social

“…De esta forma, los principales agentes de interés prioritariamente referidos a los que consultar por las necesidades a que habría de atender la Universidad son los que conforman el tejido productivo -empleadores, empresas capaces de incorporar tecnologías, etc.- (Crespo y Dridi, 2007); las competencias transversales (y otras competencias de los programas formativos) son valoradas en los programas en función de su valía en el mercado de trabajo (Abrandt et al, 2007;Allen y de Weert, 2007;Yorke, 2006; The Pedagogy for Employability Group, 2006;Teichler, 2007; 28 Es de interés aquí el informe de OCDE 'Final report DeSeCo Project (Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations)'. Se puede consultar información más completa del proyecto en el sitio web de OCDE: http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyondschool/definitionandselectionofcompetenciesdeseco.htm.…”

Are We Wasting Our Talent? Overqualification and Overskilling Among PhD Graduates

“…More and more authors, however, are using measures of deficits/surpluses in skills or competences (Allen & van der Velden, 2001;Green et al, 2002;McGuinness, 2003;Allen & de Weert, 2007;Green & McIntosh, 2007;McGuinness & Wooden, 2007;Mavromaras et al, 2010;McGuinness & Sloane, 2011) 4 . An initial conclusion emerging from this literature is that, quite unexpectedly, educational and skills mismatches are only weakly correlated, indicating that perhaps they are distinct empirical phenomena that need to be studied separately 5 .…”