https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6878-2086
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ABSTRACT
This study contributes to the debate on the determinants of over-qualification among European Union (EU) mobile workers. More specifically, we quantify the impact of observable compositional heterogeneity on the over-qualification gap between mobile workers from new EU member states (EU13) and those from old EU member states (EU15). Using data from the EU Labour Force Survey 2014 Ad Hoc Module, we first identify factors that may determine the likelihood of over-qualification among EU mobile workers through logistic regression models. Next, using a variant of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique, we measure the effects of heterogeneity on human capital and differential distribution across European labour markets on the differences in over-qualification between these two groups of workers. Our results show that the differences in human capital explain an important aspect of the gap. However, the most important explanation for the disparities between both groups is the distribution of workers across countries clustered according to the type of labour market regulation. Our study reveals that despite the formal equality guaranteed by the EU law there are persistent inequalities in terms of educational–occupational adjustment that are largely (but not exclusively) due to structural and compositional factors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Based on Article 39 EC (Regulation 1612/68/EEC), EU citizens are guaranteed access to employment under equal conditions and cannot be discriminated against due to their nationality in the EU. Nonetheless, workers from new member states did not acquire full labour rights throughout the EU as soon as their country joined the EU because several old member states imposed transitional periods for free movement to control the entry of new member state citizens into their labour markets. In successive years, these transitional periods were lifted.
2. Beginning in the early 2010s, a new wave of labour migration was observed from southern to northern EU15 member states, as Spain, Portugal, and Greece were severely affected by the 2007–2008 economic crisis. Nevertheless, the scale of worker flows from these countries was significantly smaller than migration from new member states (Kaczmarczyk and Stanek Citation2016; Akgüç and Beblavý Citation2019).
3. Nationals from three countries within the EU13 category present significant particularities. More specifically, Malta and Cypress stand out from the rest of the EU13 countries because they were not transitional countries and because no moratoria on the free movement of their workers were imposed when they joined the EU. In the case of Croatia, 13 of the 27 EU member states continued to restrict Croatian workers from accessing their labour markets in 2014. Nevertheless, the mobility of nationals from these countries is rather low; therefore, including them in the EU13 category does not affect its consistency (Canetta, Fries-Tersch, and Mabilia Citation2015).