IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/deveco/v53y2015i3p218-231.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wage Consequences of Rapid Tertiary Education Expansion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat
  • Jessica Vechbanyongratana

Abstract

type="main"> In recent years, Thailand has experienced the emergence of “overeducated” workers as the supply of university graduates in Thailand has outpaced growth in high-skilled employment opportunities. Using the 2007 to 2009 Thai Labor Force Survey, this paper quantifies the incidence of overeducation and estimates overeducation wage penalties among male university graduates. The results show that the incidence of overeducation is greatest among younger cohorts. Quantile wage regression results suggest that overeducation wage penalties for older workers capture the impact of unobserved low ability on wages. In contrast, persistent wage penalties of 11–26% across the wage/ability distributions for younger workers are consistent with structural imbalances in the Thai labor market. These imbalances make it difficult for university graduates to find jobs commensurate with their level of formal education and to achieve their full earning power. The wage penalties are especially large for new entrants into the labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat & Jessica Vechbanyongratana, 2015. "Wage Consequences of Rapid Tertiary Education Expansion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Thailand," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 53(3), pages 218-231, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:deveco:v:53:y:2015:i:3:p:218-231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/deve.12078
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duncan, Greg J. & Hoffman, Saul D., 1981. "The incidence and wage effects of overeducation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 75-86, February.
    2. Juan Yang & David Mayston, 2012. "Impact of Overeducation on Wages in China," Chinese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 65-89, March.
    3. Ana I Moro-Egido & Santiago Budría, "undated". "Overeducation and Wages in Europe: Evidence from Quantile Regression," Studies on the Spanish Economy 229, FEDEA.
    4. Moshe Buchinsky, 1998. "Recent Advances in Quantile Regression Models: A Practical Guideline for Empirical Research," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 88-126.
    5. Richard R. Verdugo & Naomi Turner Verdugo, 1989. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Earnings: Some Additional Findings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(4), pages 629-643.
    6. James P. Smith & Finis Welch, 1978. "The Overeducated American? A Review Article," UCLA Economics Working Papers 147, UCLA Department of Economics.
    7. Hawley, Joshua D., 2004. "Changing returns to education in times of prosperity and crisis, Thailand 1985-1998," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 273-286, June.
    8. Buchinsky, Moshe, 1994. "Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure 1963-1987: Application of Quantile Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 405-458, March.
    9. McGuinness, Seamus & Bennett, Jessica, 2007. "Overeducation in the graduate labour market: A quantile regression approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 521-531, October.
    10. Groot, Wim & Maassen van den Brink, Henriette, 2000. "Overeducation in the labor market: a meta-analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 149-158, April.
    11. Quinn, Michael A. & Rubb, Stephen, 2006. "Mexico's labor market: The importance of education-occupation matching on wages and productivity in developing countries," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 147-156, April.
    12. Mehta, Aashish & Felipe, Jesus & Quising, Pilipinas & Camingue, Sheila, 2011. "Overeducation in developing economies: How can we test for it, and what does it mean?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1334-1347.
    13. Russell W. Rumberger, 1987. "The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Productivity and Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wongmonta, Sasiwooth, 2023. "Revisiting the wage effects of vocational education and training (VET) over the life cycle: The case of Thailand," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Dai Binh Tran & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat, 2023. "The returns to education and wage penalty from overeducation: New evidence from Vietnam," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1267-1290, October.
    3. Nada Wasi & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat & Chinnawat Devahastin Na Ayudhya & Pucktada Treeratpituk & Chommanart Nittayo, 2019. "Labor Income Inequality in Thailand: the Roles of Education, Occupation and Employment History," PIER Discussion Papers 117, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat & Lusi Liao, 2022. "Brain over Brawn: Job Polarization, Structural Change, and Skill Prices," PIER Discussion Papers 189, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seamus McGuinness & Konstantinos Pouliakas & Paul Redmond, 2018. "Skills Mismatch: Concepts, Measurement And Policy Approaches," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 985-1015, September.
    2. Dai Binh Tran & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat, 2023. "The returns to education and wage penalty from overeducation: New evidence from Vietnam," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1267-1290, October.
    3. Matloob Piracha & Florin Vadean, 2013. "Migrant educational mismatch and the labor market," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 9, pages 176-192, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Paula Herrera-Idárraga & Enrique López-Bazo & Elisabet Motellón, 2012. "Informality and overeducation in the labor market of a developing country," Working Papers XREAP2012-20, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Nov 2012.
    5. Sara Flisi & Valentina Goglio & Elena Claudia Meroni & Margarida Rodrigues & Esperanza Vera-Toscano, 2017. "Measuring Occupational Mismatch: Overeducation and Overskill in Europe—Evidence from PIAAC," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1211-1249, April.
    6. Clemente Pignatti Morano, 2014. "The determinants of overeducation: Evidence from the Italian labour market," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 9, in: Adela García Aracil & Isabel Neira Gómez (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 9, edition 1, volume 9, chapter 35, pages 681-698, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    7. Santiago Budría, 2011. "Are Educational Mismatches Responsible for the ‘Inequality Increasing Effect’ of Education?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 409-437, July.
    8. Carroll, David & Tani, Massimiliano, 2013. "Over-education of recent higher education graduates: New Australian panel evidence," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 207-218.
    9. Issofou Njifen & Peter Smith, 2024. "Education-Job Mismatch and Heterogeneity in the Return to Schooling: Evidence from Cameroon," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 860-887, March.
    10. Berlingieri, Francesco & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2012. "How relevant is job mismatch for German graduates?," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-075, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Balzhan Serikbayeva & Kanat Abdulla, 2022. "Education-Job Mismatch: Implications for Individual Earnings and Aggregate Output," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 723-752, September.
    12. Shweta Bahl & Ajay Sharma, 2021. "Education–Occupation Mismatch and Dispersion in Returns to Education: Evidence from India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 251-298, January.
    13. Eleni Kalfa & Matloob Piracha, 2017. "Immigrants’ educational mismatch and the penalty of over-education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 462-481, September.
    14. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    15. Joaquin Turmo-Garuz & M.-Teresa Bartual-Figueras & Francisco-Javier Sierra-Martinez, 2019. "Factors Associated with Overeducation Among Recent Graduates During Labour Market Integration: The Case of Catalonia (Spain)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 1273-1301, August.
    16. Paula Herrera-Id�rraga & Enrique L�pez-Bazo & Elisabet Motell�n, 2015. "Double Penalty in Returns to Education: Informality and Educational Mismatch in the Colombian Labour Market," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(12), pages 1683-1701, December.
    17. L. Cattani & G. Guidetti & G. Pedrini, 2014. "Assessing the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among Italian graduates using a new measure for educational requirements," Working Papers wp939, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    18. Cedrick Kalemasi Mosengo & Christian Zamo Akono, 2024. "Effect of Informal Employment on Overeducation in Developing Countries with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/004, African Governance and Development Institute..
    19. Hartog, Joop, 2000. "Over-education and earnings: where are we, where should we go?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 131-147, April.
    20. Yih‐chyi Chuang & Chia‐Yu Liang, 2022. "Overeducation and skill mismatch of university graduates in Taiwan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1693-1712, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:deveco:v:53:y:2015:i:3:p:218-231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idegvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.