Education as a Shield Against the Adverse Shock of Motherhood: Gender, Parenthood and Overeducation Among Highly and Mid-Educated British Workers

Luis Ortiz-Gervasi (), Seamus McGuinness () and Benedetta Nussio
Additional contact information
Luis Ortiz-Gervasi: Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Seamus McGuinness: Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin
Benedetta Nussio: Università degli Studi di Trento

No 18518, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: This research improves our understanding of overeducation by highlighting its risks among middle-educated workers, especially the specific risk that motherhood may pose for job mismatch among them, compared to highly educated women. It employs random-effects and Heckman selection models with Mundlak correctors on 14 waves of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) to explore the relationship between overeducation, gender, and parenthood among middle- and highly educated employees. Overall, women are found to have a lower risk of overeducation compared to men. However, becoming a mother and having more children negatively impact the status of middle-educated women in comparison to both male workers and highly educated women. Additional evidence from the European Jobs and Skills Survey (2021) shows that jobs held by middle-educated individuals offer less job discretion than those held by highly educated workers. This lack of discretion may hinder the development of firm-specific or occupational skills that would enable women to maintain or enhance their job status after becoming mothers or having additional children.

Keywords: overeducation; gender; level of education; parenthood; gender inequality; United Kingdom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 J12 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-gen
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18518.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18518

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().