Labour market job matching for UK minority ethnic groups

Shirley Dex and Joanne Lindley ()

No 2007003, Working Papers from The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics

Abstract: The paper devises a new method of calculating whether individuals are over educated using a parametric model. This new method is applied to men and women from different ethnic groups using data drawn from 4 pooled cross-sections of the UK Labour Force Survey. Calibrated against existing mean-mode methods, the new approach leads to lower levels of over education, more so for men than women. The model is then extended to include non-qualification elements of human capital such as employment experience and job related skills. Model specifications are further varied by educational qualification measures, the presence of children and gender, as well as allowing for full gender segregation by estimating a single equation (pooled men and women) and separate equations (men and women separately). The results show that the while the overall extent of over education has similarities with earlier studies (eg. over-education is more prevalent amongst women than men), the differences between ethnic groups, as well as between minority ethnic groups and White employees, are far less than that found in some earlier studies. Black African men and women had the greatest amount of over education, followed by Chinese women. Bangladeshi women had the lowest rates among women. It is probably possible to explain almost all of the gap in over education rates between white and minority women and men by a combination of factors; differences in working part time, being temporarily over educated and by differences in the quality of educational qualifications.

Keywords: Qualifications; discrimination; employment; ethnicity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2007-01, Revised 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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