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Do Chinese Employers Avoid Hiring Overqualified Workers? Evidence from an Internet Job Board

In: Labor Market Issues in China

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  • Kailing Shen
  • Peter Kuhn

Abstract

Can having more education than a job requires reduce one’s chances of being offered the job? We study this question in a sample of applications to jobs that are posted on an urban Chinese website. We find that being overqualified in this way does not reduce the success rates of university-educated jobseekers applying to college-level jobs, but that it does hurt college-educated workers’ chances when applying to jobs requiring technical school, which involves three fewer years of education than college. Our results highlight a difficult situation faced by the recent large cohort of college-educated Chinese workers: They seem to fare poorly in the competition for jobs, both when pitted against more-educated university graduates and less-educated technical school graduates.

Suggested Citation

  • Kailing Shen & Peter Kuhn, 2013. "Do Chinese Employers Avoid Hiring Overqualified Workers? Evidence from an Internet Job Board," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 1-30, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:rleczz:s0147-9121(2013)0000037005
    DOI: 10.1108/S0147-9121(2013)0000037005
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    Cited by:

    1. Peter Kuhn & Kailing Shen, 2015. "Do employers prefer migrant workers? Evidence from a Chinese job board," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    2. Tilo Li & Andy Chan & Eugene Li, 2018. "A pilot study of over-education in Hong Kong," International Journal of Teaching and Education, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, April.
    3. Kuhn, Peter & Shen, Kailing & Zhang, Shuo, 2020. "Gender-targeted job ads in the recruitment process: Facts from a Chinese job board," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    4. Nasib Dar & Wali Rahman, 2020. "Two angles of overqualification-the deviant behavior and creative performance: The role of career and survival job," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, January.
    5. Yejun Zhang & Mark C. Bolino & Kui Yin, 2023. "The Interactive Effect of Perceived Overqualification and Peer Overqualification on Peer Ostracism and Work Meaningfulness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 699-716, January.
    6. Daniel Kreisman & Jonathan Smith & Bondi Arifin, 2023. "Labor Market Signaling and the Value of College: Evidence from Resumes and the Truth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(6), pages 1820-1849.
    7. Wu, Na & Wang, Qunyong, 2018. "Wage penalty of overeducation: New micro-evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 206-217.
    8. 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.
    9. Lucia Kureková & Miroslav Beblavý & Anna Thum-Thysen, 2015. "Using online vacancies and web surveys to analyse the labour market: a methodological inquiry," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-20, December.
    10. Andreas Damelang & Martin Abraham & Sabine Ebensperger & Felix Stumpf, 2019. "The Hiring Prospects of Foreign-Educated Immigrants: A Factorial Survey among German Employers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(5), pages 739-758, October.
    11. Kureková, Lucia Mýtna & Beblavy, Miroslav & Thum, Anna-Elisabeth, 2014. "Using Internet Data to Analyse the Labour Market: A Methodological Enquiry," IZA Discussion Papers 8555, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overqualification; Internet job board; job search and match; labor demand; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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