The Increasing Penalty to Occupation-Education Mismatch

Hugh Cassidy and Amanda Gaulke

No 16079, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: College-educated workers in jobs unrelated to their degree generally receive lower wages compared to well-matched workers. Our analysis of data from the National Survey of College Graduates shows that although the rate of this mismatch declined only slightly (19% to 17%), the wage penalty increased by 51% between 1993 and 2019. Changes in the composition of field of study over time, as well as declining returns to "excess" education above what is required for the occupation both help to explain the increasing penalty, especially for women. Mismatch has become more closely associated with lowerreturn occupations for men but not women.

Keywords: field of study; education mismatch; wage penalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I26 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in Economic Inquiry, 2024, 62 (2), 607–632.

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Journal Article: The increasing penalty to occupation‐education mismatch (2024)
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