Universidad de Maastricht. Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA)
Abstract
Using Spanish data from European Union Household Panel Survey corresponding to
2001, we find that the incidence and the consequences, monetary and non-monetary, are
different for the job-worker qualification and education mismatches. In fact, only 36%
of workers have the same type of fit under both criterions of classification. Additionally,
the qualification mismatches have worse consequences for workers than education
mismatches. Specifically, the monetary consequences are neutrals for overqualified
workers, but negatives for underqualified workers, while the wage of educational
mismatched workers is not significantly different of those who have similar
characteristics and are accurately match in terms of formal education. However, the
overeducated workers earn higher wages than their well-matched co-workers and the
wage penalization for one year of undereducation is lower than the reward for one year
of required education. On the other hand, the analysis of the non-monetary
consequences, by means of job satisfaction, shows that the qualification mismatched
workers have lower probability of being completely satisfied than those who are
accurately match in terms of qualification, while the effects of education mismatch
situations on job satisfaction are no significant. However, among similar jobs, the years
of educational mismatch can have an effect even positive on job satisfaction
