Do wages and job satisfaction really depend on educational mismatch? Evidence from an international sample of Master graduates
Additional information
Authors
Type
Journal Article
Year
2019
Language
English
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to find econometric evidence of a negative influence of educational mismatch on either wage or job satisfaction, once potential sources of bias are adequately considered. The analysis attempts to answer the question: do wage or job satisfaction really depends on educational mismatch?
The paper uses a panel data of 1690 early career Master graduates from Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Switzerland. First, a wage equation with dummies representing educational mismatch and other control variables is estimated. On the other hand, a regression in which the dependent variable is the degree of self-assessed job satisfaction is run in order to identify the effect of mismatch on job satisfaction.
The analysis finds no robust econometric evidence of a negative influence of educational mismatch on either wage or job satisfaction, once potential sources of bias are adequately considered.
The estimates have been conducted on a specific sub-population, i.e. a limited sample of Master graduates from a single Swiss university in the years 2006-2016; it is then not straightforward that results can be generalised to the whole population.
The influence of educational mismatch on job satisfaction has been extensively studied in the previous literature; however, most of the existing studies are likely to report biased results due to unobserved heterogeneity and measurement error. We address these two serious econometric issues by proposing a new instrumental variable for a self-assessed mismatch, i.e. time spent in job search after graduation.
Journal
Education + Training
Volume
61
Number
2
Month
February
Start page number
201
End page number
221
Keywords
educational mismatch, instrumental variable, job satisfaction, ordered model, measurement error
