Educational mismatch: are high-skilled immigrants really working at high-skilled jobs and the price they pay if they aren't?

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the incidence of the mismatch of the educational attainment and the occupation of employment, and the impact of this mismatch on the earnings, of high-skilled adult male immigrants in the US labor market. Analyses for high-skilled adult male native-born workers are also presented for comparison purposes. The results show that over-education is widespread in the high-skilled US labor market, both for immigrants and the native born. The extent of over-education declines with duration in the US as high-skilled immigrants obtain jobs commensurate with their educational level. Years of schooling that are above that which is usual for a worker's occupation are associated with very low increases in earnings. Indeed, in the first 10 to 20 years in the US years of over-education among high-skilled workers have a negative effect on earnings. This ineffective use of surplus education appears across all occupations and high-skilled education levels. Although schooling serves as a pathway to occupational attainment, earnings appear to be more closely linked to a worker's occupation than to the individual's level of schooling.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4280

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Analysis of Education ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; International Migration
• Thema: Immigrants ; skill ; schooling ; occupations ; earnings ; rates of return ; Überqualifikation ; Hochqualifizierte Arbeitskräfte ; Migranten ; Brain Drain ; Bildungsertrag ; USA

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Chiswick, Barry R. ; Miller, Paul W.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2009

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/35828
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2009082123
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ