Unemployment or Overeducation: Which is a Worse Signal to Employers?

Stijn Baert and Dieter Verhaest

No 8312, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study aims at estimating the stigma effect of unemployment and overeducation within one framework. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. We send out trios of fictitious male job applications to real vacancies. These applications differ only by the labour market history of the candidates. By monitoring the subsequent reactions from the employer side, we find evidence for a larger stigma effect of unemployment than overeducation. The stigma effect of overeducation is found to occur for permanent contract jobs but not temporary ones.

Keywords: transitions in youth; overeducation signalling; unemployment signalling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur, nep-exp, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Published - revised version published in: De Economist , 2019, 167, 1 - 21

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Related works:
Journal Article: Unemployment or Overeducation: Which is a Worse Signal to Employers? (2019)
Working Paper: Unemployment or Overeducation: Which is a Worse Signal to Employers? (2014)
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