Immigrant overeducation across two generations: the role of gender and part-time work

Kevin Pineda-Hernández, Francois Rycx and Mélanie Volral

Oxford Economic Papers, 2025, vol. 77, issue 2, 445-465

Abstract: Overeducation implies having a higher level of education than that required to perform a specific job. In this regard, a large body of literature shows that first-generation immigrants born in developing countries experience a higher likelihood of being overeducated than natives due in part to their foreign origin (i.e. immigrant overeducation). However, evidence is remarkably scarce regarding the overeducation of second-generation immigrants. Using a matched employer–employee database for Belgium over the period 1999–2016 and generalized ordered logit regressions, we contribute to the literature with one of the first studies on the intergenerational nexus between overeducation and origin among tertiary-educated workers. Our estimates suggest that immigrant overeducation disappears across two generations, except for workers from the Near and Middle East and the Maghreb. Moreover, we show that immigrant overeducation is a persistent intergenerational phenomenon among part-time workers. Our gender-interacted estimates confirm this conclusion for both male and female workers.

Keywords: immigrants; second generation; labour market integration; overeducation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I22 J15 J24 J61 J62 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Working Paper: Immigrant overeducation across two generations: The role of gender and part-time work (2024)
Working Paper: Immigrant overeducation across two generations: The role of gender and part-time work (2024)
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