Immigrant Over- and Under-Education: The Role of Home Country Labour Market Experience

33 Pages Posted: 10 Dec 2010

See all articles by Matloob Piracha

Matloob Piracha

University of Kent - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Massimiliano Tani

University of New South Wales - Australian Defence Force Academy; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Florin Vadean

PSSRU, University of Kent

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 9, 2010

Abstract

The cause of immigrant education mismatch in the host country labour market might not necessarily be discrimination or imperfect transferability of human capital, as argued in previous studies. Immigrants who have gained professional experience in the home country in jobs below their education level might be assessed by host country employers as having lower abilities and skills than those expected from their educational qualifications. Using the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia we show that a significant part of the variation in the immigrants’ probability to be over-/under-educated in the Australian labour market can be explained by having been over-/under-educated in the last job in the home country.

Keywords: Immigration, Education-Occupation Mismatch, Sample Selection

JEL Classification: C34, J24, J61

Suggested Citation

Piracha, Matloob and Tani, Massimiliano and Vadean, Florin, Immigrant Over- and Under-Education: The Role of Home Country Labour Market Experience (December 9, 2010). CEIS Working Paper No. 175, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1722647 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1722647

Matloob Piracha (Contact Author)

University of Kent - Department of Economics ( email )

Keynes College
Kent, CT2 7NP
United Kingdom

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Massimiliano Tani

University of New South Wales - Australian Defence Force Academy ( email )

Sydney, NSW 2052
Australia
+612 6268 8512 (Phone)
+612 6248 8450 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/sbus/staff_cvs/about_max_t.html

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Florin Vadean

PSSRU, University of Kent ( email )

George Allen Wing
Cornwallis Building
Kent, CT2 7NF
United Kingdom

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