Walking Wounded – The Causal Welfare Loss of Underemployment through Overeducation

John P. Haisken-DeNew and Jan Kleibrink ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: John P. de New

No 423, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: Using data from the SOEP, we analyze the wellbeing impact of underemployment through overeducation to examine a broader definition of employment loss. Persons leaving a job through exogenous reasons but entering directly into immediate employment may not find a perfect employment match and cannot use their skills fully in the new job. We demonstrate that a 'downchange', although welfare reducing, may be more desirable than suffering the large welfare losses associated with unemployment whilst searching for a more suitable job match. Nonetheless, underemployed persons do not enter into the official job statistics, whilst their welfare loss due to 'downchange' is approximately 50% of the welfare loss of entry into unemployment.

Keywords: life satisfaction; skill mismatch; job change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/77087/1/751411698.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:zbw:rwirep:423

DOI: 10.4419/86788479

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().