Does Over-education Influence French Economic Growth?

Abstract

In the last two decades, France has experienced an increase in mismatches between education and work. This article studies twenty two years of French productivity to highlight the causes and effects of over-education on the employee wages and the national income. From the INSEE and Cereq data, this analysis shows a positive effect in the short term on wages of the least qualified and overeducated worker. Furthermore, over-education phenomenon does not penalize the higher graduates. Paradoxically, if it is always profitable for individuals to increase their education investment; in term of growth, over-education of the higher graduates produce an unfavourable short term effect on GDP.causality, growth, overeducation