Yin King Fok

The Problem of Overskilling in Australia and Britain

In this paper we examine the parallel trends in education and labour market developments in Australia and Britain using unique information on reported overskilling in the workplace. To a degree, the overskilling information overcomes the problem of unobserved ability differences and focuses on the actual job–employee mismatch more than the conventional overeducation variables can. The paper finds that the prevalence of overskilling decreases with education at least for Australia, but the wage penalty associated with overskilling increases with education. Although the prevalence of overskilling differs between Australia and Britain, the pattern of the wage penalties is fairly similar in both countries.

Assessing the Incidence and Wage Effects of Overskilling in the Australian Labour Market

This paper examines the incidence and wage effects of overskilling in Australia. It finds that approximately 30 per cent of employees believed themselves to be moderately overskilled and 11 per cent believed themselves to be severely overskilled. The incidence of skills mismatch varied little when the sample was split by education. After controlling for individual and job characteristics as well as the potential bias arising from individual unobserved heterogeneity, severely overskilled workers suffer an average wage penalty of 10.2 per cent with the penalty ranging from about 6 per cent among vocationally qualified employees to just less than 20 per cent for graduates.

The Low-Pay No-Pay Cycle: Are There Systematic Differences across Demographic Groups?

We investigate transitions between unemployment, low-paid employment and higher-paid employment using household panel data for the period 2001 to 2011. Dynamic panel data methods are used to estimate the effects of labour force status on subsequent labour force status. A distinctive feature of our study is the investigation of heterogeneity in the effects of unemployment and low-paid employment on future employment prospects. We find that there is state dependence in both unemployment and low-paid employment and clear evidence of a low-pay no-pay cycle for both men and women. Significant differences in effects across different subgroups of the population are, however, found. Typically, the young and the better educated face less severe penalties from unemployment or low-paid employment, and, for women, the cycle between low pay and no pay varies across subgroups. Moreover, in the case of men who have completed secondary schooling but have no further qualifications, low-paid employment actually decreases the chances of entering higher-paid employment by more than unemployment does. This is not the case for women, however, who clearly have a higher likelihood of entering higher-paid employment from low-paid employment than from unemployment, regardless of their age, education level or other characteristics.