 The Theory of Differential Overqualification: Does it Work?Felix Büchel and Harminder Battu Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 2003, vol. 50, issue 1, 1-16 Abstract: The theory of differential overqualification, developed by Robert Frank (1978),claims that married women in smaller labour markets have a higher risk of workingin jobs for which they are overqualified. This stems from the problem of dual jobsearch for couples which is much more difficult to optimize than single job search.Here, for several reasons husbands tend to first optimize their individual job search.Their wives are `tied movers' or `tied stayers' in the sense that their job search isundertaken under the condition that the job search of their husbands is optimized.This leads especially in smaller labour markets to a higher risk of a mismatchbetween formal qualifications and job requirements. The only specific empiricaltest of this theory, until now, has been performed by McGoldrick and Robst (1996). Their results, using US data, do not support the theory. Using Germanpanel data (GSOEP), we also test the theory of differential overqualification.Unlike previous studies we control for commuting distances and our own resultsprovide some mixed support for the differential overqualification hypothesis. Date: 2003 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:50:y:2003:i:1:p:1-16 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Scottish Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by Tim Barmby, Andrew Hughes-Hallett and Campbell Leith More articles in Scottish Journal of Political Economy from Scottish Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC. |
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