The Problem of Overskilling in Australia and Britain

Kostas Mavromaras, Seamus Mcguinness (), Nigel O’Leary (), Peter James Sloane and Yi King Fok ()
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Nigel O’Leary: University of Swansea
Yi King Fok: University of Melbourne

No 3136, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the parallel trends in education and labour market developments in Australia and Britain. It uses unique information in the WERS and HILDA surveys on reported overskilling in the workplace. To a degree, the overskilling information overcomes the problem of unobserved ability differences and focuses on the actual job-employee mismatch more than the conventional overeducation variables can. The paper finds that the prevalence of overskilling decreases with education at least for Australia, but the wage penalty associated with overskilling increases with education. Although the general patterns of overskilling (prevalence and penalties) are fairly similar between Australia and Britain, the problem appears to be greater in Britain.

Keywords: overskilling; overeducation; Australia; Britain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-lab
Date: 2007-11
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Working Paper: The Problem of Overskilling in Australia and Britain (2007)
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