In a meritocratic system, the tension between educational competition and youth job quality hinders human capital optimization and social mobility. Drawing on nationally representative survey data, this study examines the relationship between the educational attainment of Chinese youth and their job quality from both objective (e.g., obtaining socially recognized positions) and subjective (e.g., job satisfaction and efficacy) dimensions. Special attention is given to the mediating role of meritocracy-induced overeducation. We uncover a central paradox: while higher education attainment improves youths’ access to socially recognized good jobs, it simultaneously erodes their sense of job efficacy. This paradox is closely linked to the pressures of overeducation fostered by meritocratic values. Moreover, rural-origin youth experience lower objective returns but report higher job efficacy than urban peers. These findings challenge the assumption that more education uniformly yields higher returns, highlighting overeducation’s paradoxical effects and rural–urban divergence in China’s labor market. Policymakers should therefore look beyond mere educational expansion to build a more diversified talent evaluation system, so as to mitigate the psychological and occupational strains induced by credential-centric competition.
Lan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.