Educational Mismatch: Are High-skilled Immigrants Really Working in High-Skilled Jobs, and What Price Do They Pay If They Are Not?
This chapter examines the incidence of mismatch of educational attainment and occupation of employment, and the impact of this mismatch on earnings, of high-skilled adult male immigrants in the U.S. labor market. The results show that over-education is widespread in the high-skilled U.S. labor market, both for immigrants and the native born. The extent of over-education declines with duration in the U.S. as high-skilled immigrants obtain jobs commensurate with their educational level. Years of schooling beyond what 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 U.S. years of over-education among high-skilled workers affect earnings negatively. 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 more closely linked to a worker’s occupation than to the individual’s level of schooling.