Overeducation, skills and social background: the influence of parental education on overeducation in Spain

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the influence of social background on overeducation in Spain, understanding family socialisation as a source of knowledge and skills gain. The dramatic education expansion experienced in Spain in combination with a high percentage of low-skilled jobs has promoted overeducation occurrence to a larger extent than in other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) data results suggest that overeducation affects at least over a quarter of the working population. Younger and middle aged workers are more likely to be overeducated compared to the senior ones, while women are more prone to be overeducated than men. Workers whose mothers have higher education are less likely to be overeducated compared to those whose mothers have basic education, while fathers’ education is practically irrelevant to predict workers’ overeducation. Thus, a mother’s education is the most relevant social background indicator to predict overeducation, even when controlling for firm characteristics and skills level.

KEYWORDS:

• Overeducation
• social class
• sociology of education
• Spain
• quantitative methods

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments that helped to improve this article. I am also grateful to previous comments received by members of Fundació Jaume Bofill (Barcelona) and for the technical training received in the PIAAC data workshop in Madrid

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For a detailed discussion of overeducation theories see Capsada-Munsech (2017), Kucel (2011) and Quintini (2011a).

2. Participation in the problem-solving in technology-rich environments skills assessment was optional and Spain did not take part in it.

3. Canada and Estonia are not included in the analysis because of a lack of information on basic variables, while Austria and Finland are not considered in the analysis including the objective indicator because of a lack of information in variables required to construct it.

4. International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008.

5. International Standard Classification of Education 1997.

6. Immigrant background variable is not introduced in the analysis due to a high non-response rate for the selected sample.

7. All multinomial regressions have been weighted and estimated using a survey jackknife approximation [svy jackknife].

8. Complete regression coefficient tables including all models are available upon demand.

9. International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). ISCED 0–2 corresponds to lower secondary education levels or below; ISCED 3–4 to upper secondary education levels; ISCED 5–6 to tertiary education levels.

10. Variable ISCOSKIl4 in PIAAC database. Skilled jobs include skilled professions at skill level 4 (ISCED 5a-6 required); semi-skilled white-collar jobs at skill level 3 (ISCED 5b required); semi-skilled blue-collar jobs at skill level 2 (ISCED 2–3 required); elementary jobs include occupations at skill level 1 (ISCED 1 required).

11. Reference category is educationally matched workers.