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.