IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4513.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Determinants of Education-Job Match among Canadian University Graduates

Author

Listed:
  • Boudarbat, Brahim

    (University of Montreal)

  • Chernoff, Victor

    (University of Montreal)

Abstract

This study uses data from the Follow-up of Graduates Survey – Class of 2000, to look at the determinants of education-job match among Canadian university graduates. From a public policy perspective, the question of education-job match is relevant given the substantial investment society puts into its postsecondary institutions, and the role devoted to human capital in economic development. Our results indicate that one graduate out of three (35.1%) is in a job that is not closely related to his or her education. The most important result is that demographic and socioeconomic characteristics (gender and family background) do not significantly affect the match. On the other hand, education characteristics strongly influence match, with field specific programs (such as "Health sciences" and "Education") having the highest likelihood of obtaining an education-job match. In addition, the level of education (i.e. graduates with a postgraduate degree vs. a bachelor degree), as well as good grades, strongly affect the match. Employment characteristics also affect the match, but to a mixed extent, with certain characteristics, such as industry, as well as working full-time (vs. part time) affecting the match to a strong extent, while others, such as the permanence of employment, as well as the method used to obtain employment, not having a significant effect on match.

Suggested Citation

  • Boudarbat, Brahim & Chernoff, Victor, 2009. "The Determinants of Education-Job Match among Canadian University Graduates," IZA Discussion Papers 4513, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4513
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4513.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen, Jim & van der Velden, Rolf, 2001. "Educational Mismatches versus Skill Mismatches: Effects on Wages, Job Satisfaction, and On-the-Job Search," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 434-452, July.
    2. Heijke, Hans & Meng, Christoph & Ris, Catherine, 2003. "Fitting to the job: the role of generic and vocational competencies in adjustment and performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 215-229, April.
    3. Heijke, Hans & Meng, Christoph & Ris, Catherine, 2003. "Fitting to the job: the role of generic and vocational competencies in adjustment and performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 215-229, April.
    4. Lex Borghans & Andries de Grip (ed.), 2000. "The Overeducated Worker?," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1860.
    5. van Smoorenburg, M. S. M. & van der Velden, R. K. W., 2000. "The training of school-leavers: Complementarity or substitution?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 207-217, April.
    6. Melanie K. Jones & Peter J. Sloane, 2010. "Disability and Skill Mismatch," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(s1), pages 101-114, September.
    7. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    8. Drolet, Marie, 2005. "Participation in Post-secondary Education in Canada: Has the Role of Parental Income and Education Changed over the 1990s?," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2005243e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    9. Giorgio Di Pietro & Peter Urwin, 2006. "Education and skills mismatch in the Italian graduate labour market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 79-93.
    10. Brahim Boudarbat & Claude Montmarquette, 2009. "Choice of fields of study of university Canadian graduates: the role of gender and their parents' education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 185-213.
    11. Sattinger, Michael, 1993. "Assignment Models of the Distribution of Earnings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 831-880, June.
    12. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2007. "The International Transferability of Immigrants’ Human Capital Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 2670, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Robst, John, 2007. "Education and job match: The relatedness of college major and work," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 397-407, August.
    14. John Robst, 2007. "Education, College Major, and Job Match: Gender Differences in Reasons for Mismatch," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 159-175.
    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. Sergey Roshchin & Victor Rudakov, 2015. "Do Starting Salaries for Graduates Measure the Quality of Education? A Review of Studies by Russian and Foreign Authors," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 137-181.
    2. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Brahim Boudarbat & Claude Montmarquette, 2013. "Origine et sources de la surqualification dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal," CIRANO Project Reports 2013rp-08, CIRANO.
    4. Summerfield, Fraser, 2014. "Labor Market Conditions, Skill Requirements and Education Mismatch," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2014-19, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 28 Apr 2014.
    5. Hadavand, Aboozar & Thomas, Sarah M & Almasi, Pooya & Gharehgozli, Orkideh, 2019. "Relevance of Education to Occupation: A New Empirical Approach Based on College Courses," OSF Preprints 8ysgz, Center for Open Science.
    6. Simona Iammarino & Elisabetta Marinelli, 2012. "Education-Job (Mis)Matching And Interregional Migration: Italian University Graduates’ Transition To Work," Working Papers 8, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Sep 2012.
    7. Simona Iammarino & Elisabetta Marinelli, 2015. "Education-Job (Mis)Match and Interregional Migration: Italian University Graduates' Transition to Work," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 866-882, May.
    8. Gabriela Negoiță, 2022. "Congruence Of Educational Outcomes With Labour Market Demand From Higher Education Graduates' Perspective," Research & Education, Weik Press SRL, issue 6, pages 27-45, July.

    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. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Martin HUMBURG & Andries de GRIP & Rolf van der VELDEN, 2017. "Which skills protect graduates against a slack labour market?," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 156(1), pages 25-43, March.
    3. Kihong Park, 2018. "Vertical and horizontal mismatches and career mobility: evidence from female college graduates," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 32(2), pages 109-125, November.
    4. Dieter Verhaest & Eddy Omey, 2006. "The Impact of Overeducation and its Measurement," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 77(3), pages 419-448, July.
    5. Humburg, Martin & van der Velden, Rolf, 2015. "Skills and the graduate recruitment process: Evidence from two discrete choice experiments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 24-41.
    6. Humburg, M. & van der Velden, R.K.W., 2014. "Skills and the graduate recruitment process: Evidence from two discrete choice experiments," ROA Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    7. Simona Iammarino & Elisabetta Marinelli, 2012. "Education-Job (Mis)Matching And Interregional Migration: Italian University Graduates’ Transition To Work," Working Papers 8, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Sep 2012.
    8. David Boto-García & Marta Escalonilla, 2022. "University education, mismatched jobs: are there gender differences in the drivers of overeducation?," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(3), pages 861-902, October.
    9. Kostas Mavromaras & Seamus Mcguinness & Nigel O'Leary & Peter Sloane & Yi King Fok, 2010. "The Problem Of Overskilling In Australia And Britain," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 78(3), pages 219-241, June.
    10. Heijke, Hans & Meng, Christoph & Ris, Catherine, 2003. "Fitting to the job: the role of generic and vocational competencies in adjustment and performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 215-229, April.
    11. Mireille Bruyère, 2012. "Les rôles de la formation initiale et de l'expérience dans la hiérarchie des salaires des jeunes," Post-Print halshs-00835948, HAL.
    12. Manuel Salas-Velasco, 2021. "Mapping the (mis)match of university degrees in the graduate labor market," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 55(1), pages 1-23, December.
    13. Hanan Morsy & Adamon N. Mukasa, 2019. "Working Paper 326 - Youth Jobs, Skill and Educational Mismatches in Africa," Working Paper Series 2452, African Development Bank.
    14. Kihong Park, 2021. "Qualifications, job mismatch, and workers with disabilities," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 20(2), pages 161-180, May.
    15. SAM, Vichet, 2017. "Unemployment duration and educational mismatches: A theoretical and empirical investigation among graduates in Cambodia," MPRA Paper 87673, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 Jun 2018.
    16. Nordin, Martin & Persson, Inga & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2010. "Education-occupation mismatch: Is there an income penalty?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1047-1059, December.
    17. Mariana Olga De Santis & María Cecilia Gáname & Pedro Esteban Moncarz, 2022. "The Impact of Overeducation on Wages of Recent Economic Sciences Graduates," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 409-445, August.
    18. Sandner, Malte & Yükselen, Ipek, 2024. "Unraveling the Gender Wage Gap: Exploring Early Career Patterns among University Graduates," IZA Discussion Papers 17293, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Kiersztyn, Anna, 2013. "Stuck in a mismatch? The persistence of overeducation during twenty years of the post-communist transition in Poland," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 78-91.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Canada; university graduates; education-job match; Follow-up of Graduates Survey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp4513. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.