A new GLO Discussion Paper shows for Belgium that over-educated workers, regardless of their origin, suffer a wage penalty compared to their well-matched former classmates.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 966, 2021

Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics – Download PDF

by Jacobs, Valentine & Rycx, François & Volral, Mélanie

GLO Fellows François Rycx and Melanie Volral

Author Abstract: This paper analyses the wage effects of educational mismatch by workers’ origin using a sizeable, detailed matched employer-employee dataset for Belgium. Relying on a fine-grained approach to measuring educational mismatch, the results show that over-educated workers, regardless of their origin, suffer a wage penalty compared to their well-matched former classmates. However, the magnitude of this wage penalty is found to vary considerably depending on workers’ origin. In addition, the estimates show that origin-based differences in over-education wage penalties significantly depend on both demographics (workers’ region of birth, education, and gender) and employer characteristics (firm size and collective bargaining).

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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