Having your career path decided too early: the effects of high school track on education-occupation mismatch
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to extend the scope of previous studies on education-occupation mismatch to explicitly focus on the role high school track choices have on the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the most exhaustive available database regarding the early-career paths of university graduates in Romania. Using a novel matching technique, entropy balancing (EB), our study relies on multinomial logit models and logit regressions to estimate the effect of the completed high school track on the likelihood of being mismatched in the labor market. The empirical analysis focuses on two types of education-occupation mismatches: horizontal and vertical mismatches.
Findings
We show that studying a different field in college compared to the completed high school track increases the risk of being skill mismatched in the first job after graduation. Five years after college graduation, the influence of the high school track fades, while being skill mismatched in the first employment plays a more important role. In contrast, we find no evidence that pursuing a college major unrelated to the completed high school track increases the probability of being overeducated. However, being overeducated in the first job increases the risk of being overeducated five years later.
Originality/value
The study brings new reliable evidence on the extent to which high school track choices may contribute to the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI (No: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019–1726) within PNCDI III. We would like to thank the participants of the 8th ERMAS conference for their valuable comments and discussions. Special thanks to Mihaela David for her excellent research assistance. In memoriam, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Professor Francesco Pastore, whose guidance and mentorship greatly contributed to the development of this research project. Additionally, Alina Botezat thanks the Romanian Academy Iasi Branch for their support in conducting this research.
Citation
Botezat, A., Incaltarau, C., Diac, S.A. and Grosu, A.C. (2024), "Having your career path decided too early: the effects of high school track on education-occupation mismatch", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2023-0123
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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