Assessing the Incidence and Wage Effects of Over-Skilling in the Australian Labour Market

Kostas Mavromaras, Seamus McGuinness and King Fok

No 2837, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the incidence and wage effects of over-skilling within the Australian labour market. It finds that approximately 30 percent of employees believed themselves to be moderately over-skilled and 11 percent believed themselves to be severely over-skilled. The incidence of skills mismatch varied little when the sample was split by education. After controlling for individual and job characteristics as well as the potential bias arising from individual unobserved heterogeneity, severely over-skilled workers suffer an average wage penalty of 13.3 percent with the penalty ranging from about 8 percent among vocationally qualified employees to over 20 percent for graduates.

Keywords: education; skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2007-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Economic Record, 2009, 85(268), 60-72

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Related works:
Journal Article: Assessing the Incidence and Wage Effects of Overskilling in the Australian Labour Market (2009)
Working Paper: Assessing the Incidence and Wage Effects of Over-skilling in the Australian Labour Market (2007)
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