A comparison of educational mismatches across Europe

Research undertaken during the last few years illustrates a major mismatch between educational systems worldwide and occupations in the labour market. The literature focuses both on educational and job mismatches however the aim of this paper is to compare only the situation concerning educational mismatches. For the aim of this paper, two large sets of international data were chosen to show effects of educational mismatch. In the first part, selected results of PIAAC survey are presented. In the analytical part, data from European Social Survey ESS5 collected in the years 2010 and 2011 in selected EU countries were used. The first part of the paper provides a literature background presented so far (e.g. Dolton, Galasi, Hartog, Chevalier, Levels, and McGuinness etc.) as well as methods used to identify this mismatch both by employers and employees. The European Social Survey data were used for modified Mincer's earnings equation in the second part of the paper and regression estimates proved that overeducation is a very important issue in all developed countries. The results also introduce data on returns on investment in education based on the human capital theory which helps to explain overeducation and undereducation differences in earnings taking into account different circumstances as e.g. variation in informal human capital and skill of workers, their abilities acquired in on-the-job training and also other overeducation and undereducation considered as a temporary phenomenon. It is a great challenge to the relevance of more investment in education. Even though the current situation in educational policies supports an increasing number of university graduates, both the graduates and employers have to face a misbalance on the labour market and lower individual satisfaction. The results confirm the findings of some of previous studies and offer a platform for further discussion of educational mismatch across Europe