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reporter | yan guihua

doctors from stanford university "went ashore" as township civil servants, and master's and doctoral students from prestigious universities such as peking university gathered to apply for the sub-district office... in recent years, relevant news has frequently appeared in the newspapers, triggering heated discussions about over-education and the mismatch between the education system and the labor market. a latest study covering more than 3,000 higher education graduates from 2014 to 2020 confirmed that nearly half of graduates are victims of "over-education", which not only brings them an "income penalty" of up to 20% , has also become an important reason why many people are unhappy at work.

overeducation occurs when an individual possesses a level of education that exceeds the academic requirements required for their current job. with the expansion of colleges and universities in 1999, the gross enrollment rate of higher education has increased from less than 5% to more than 70% in the past three years. but obviously, the labor market has not changed simultaneously and provided enough relevant jobs to absorb these highly educated talents, thus creating a mismatch between education and job requirements.

the study further shows that overeducated graduates often suffer a significant "wage penalty," which is the loss in wages compared to someone with a matched education level and job. the calculation results show that according to statistical standards, the wage penalty for overeducation is 4.40%, but under the two definitions of objective standards and subjective standards, this amount is 20.78% and 20.47% respectively. that is, the knowledge and skills of the overeducated are not fully utilized, so their income levels do not match their academic qualifications. for many young people, after years of hard study, they feel that they are "unsuccessful" in the workplace. this psychological gap undoubtedly exacerbates their sense of disappointment and frustration.

this also leads to their lower job satisfaction and happiness. the study found that employees with over-educated qualifications had an average decrease in job satisfaction of approximately 4% compared to employees with matching academic qualifications. when a person feels that they are not fully utilizing their knowledge and skills, this feeling of being “unwanted” can easily translate into burnout and dissatisfaction at work. overeducation is also associated with poorer career advancement opportunities, lack of job autonomy, and a poor work environment, factors that further reduce employee happiness.

although skill level and major choice are often considered important factors in employment quality, this study found that these factors play a limited role in explaining the salary penalty and reduced job satisfaction caused by overeducation. the wage and job satisfaction penalties of overeducation persist even after accounting for factors such as cognitive and noncognitive skills (such as personality traits), academic disciplines, and skill mismatches. in other words, whether they are graduates from science, engineering, liberal arts or other majors, as long as their academic qualifications are higher than job requirements, most of them will face a decline in income and job dissatisfaction.

however, some individual differences that are not directly observed, such as personal motivation, vocational skills and other factors, also play an important role in explaining the over-education penalty. when these time-invariant traits are controlled for, some of the penalties of overeducation will be weakened or even eliminated. this means that while education and personal skills are important, sometimes unobserved traits of individuals may be more important in explaining why some people excel at work while others struggle to avoid the negative consequences of being over-educated. .

what do “overeducated” people have in common? the researchers drew this profile from their data: "they are more likely to be male, less likely to have a non-agricultural household registration, and less likely to have a formal contract or position in the public sector." in addition, overeducated employees, "score slightly lower on literacy and numeracy, but more likely to have overskills".

the phenomenon of overeducation is not unique to china. overeducation has been evident in developed countries since the 1970s, and has become a widely discussed socioeconomic problem in the following decades. some countries have taken measures such as strengthening vocational training, promoting lifelong learning and skills improvement, and reforming curriculum and education orientation to reduce the mismatch between employment and the market and promote employment among young people. among them, germany’s “dual system” vocational education model and lifelong learning policy are considered the most successful examples, but this problem has not been completely solved, especially in the field of social science education, where the mismatch between education and the market still exists.

compared with developed countries, china's situation may be more complicated, because china's higher education is expanding faster and on a larger scale. at the same time, the labor market has also undergone drastic changes along with the rapid economic development, which may take longer and more policy coordination and market regulation can achieve a dynamic balance between the two.

the emergence of overeducation is also accompanied by a decline in the return on higher education. some studies show that in the late 1990s, the rate of return on higher education reached 30%-50%; although colleges and universities expanded enrollment in the early 2000s, the overall rate of return on higher education did not drop significantly, especially in some high-demand industries such as finance, technology and in the management field, a college degree still brings a high wage premium; but starting from 2010, the return on education began to decline, and by 2015, the return dropped to about 28.9%.

facing this challenge requires adaptation at both the individual and societal levels. for individuals, flexibly adjusting career expectations, actively improving practical work skills, and cultivating more career flexibility may help to cope with the negative effects of overeducation. for policymakers and enterprises, how to create more jobs that match higher education, improve the connection between vocational education and the labor market, and improve employees' autonomy and development opportunities in the workplace are all issues worth thinking about.