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The academic circles are devoting a growing interest to delayed graduation and overeducation, but none has analyzed the joint consequences of these two phenomena. Thus, this paper studies the link between graduation not within the minimum period and overeducation, and the effects of these variables on wages, using the [Italian Participation Labour Unemployment Survey] ISFOL-Plus data. According to the human capital model, delayed graduation increases a student' human capital and should, therefore, reduce her probability of being overeducated, while increasing her wage. According to the screening hypothesis, instead, delayed graduation signals low skills and therefore increases the chances of being overeducated, while bearing a wage penalty. The evidence lines towards predictions based on the screening hypothesis. First, delayed graduation increases the chances of overeducation. In addition, the direct wage penalty associated to delayed graduation equals 7 per cent of the median wage. However, being a determinant of overeducation, it also indirectly contributes to the penalty of 19.8 per cent of the median wage associated to overeducation. These effects are sizeable, considering the very low returns to higher education in Italy reported in previous studies.

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The gradualist approach to economic transition in Belarus would contribute to form the a priori expectation that the rate of return to education is low and the earnings profile by work experience flat, like they supposedly were under central-planning. However, the first available estimates of Mincerian earnings equations based on the Belarusian Household Survey on Incomes and Expenditure suggest that the skill payoff was high in 1996, at about 10.1% per year, and stable. The return to one year of work experience is also high at 5%. This result maintains also after controlling for sample selection bias, despite a general reduction in the annual rate of return to education by about 20-30%. Though, it is ambiguous whether the high-skill payoff is the consequence of market forces coming into play or of policy decisions, considering the pervasive role of the state in the process of wage determination.

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This [paper] provides new evidence on the extent of the inheritance of educational inequality in the eight developing countries (Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Iran, Kosovo, Mongolia, Nepal, Syria) where the [International Labour Organisation] ILO carried out the first wave of [the] School-to-Work Transition survey. [The authors] observe different patterns of correlation between the level of intergenerational mobility, the educational upgrade and the role of parents in sons' and daughters' education.

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This paper aims to survey the theoretical and empirical literature on cross-country differences in overeducation. While technological change and globalization have entailed a skill-bias in the evolution of labour demand in the Anglo-Saxon countries, instead, in other advanced economies in Western Europe the increased educational level has not been associated with a parallel raise in the share of skilled occupations, therefore generating skills mismatch. This suggests that a demand-side explanation of overeducation is justified in Western Europe, which would be also confirmed by circumstantial evidence coming from the recent literature. Nonetheless, overeducation may also turn to be positive in the long run if the expansion of the supply of skills generates a technological upgrading of the production system.

Moreover, from a micro-economic point of view, recent theoretical and empirical studies tend to justify a human capital theory based interpretation of the phenomenon, whereas the disorganization of the educational system, its degree of integration with the labour market may play an important role in helping young graduates develop the work experience and the competences they need to prevent them from experiencing overeducation. Overeducation causes a penalty to individuals in terms of earnings and employment opportunities and a waste of resources to the society at large in terms of state investment into education that do not bear its yields. Both penalties are higher not only where the demand for skill is lower, but also where school-to-work transition systems fail to effectively address the aim of generating competences rather than only education for their graduates.

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Very little is known about gender wage disparities in Kosovo and, to date, nothing is known about how such wage disparities evolve over time, particularly during the first few years spent by young workers in the labor market. More generally, not much is known about gender wage gaps in early career worldwide, a period which is perceived to be an important determinant of the overall gender wage disparity. This paper analyzes data from the School-to-Work Transition (SWT) survey, an unusual survey conducted by the [International Labour Organisation] ILO between 2004 and 2006 in eight countries, including Kosovo, that documents the labor market experiences of the youngest age segment in the labor force (age 15-25 years). The results of the analysis suggest that, on average, women have lower education attainment than men but this educational disparity is masked among the sample of employed men and women who tend to be well-educated. The consequences of this dramatic segmentation of labor market participation are striking. On average, there is little or no gender wage gap. The results of the Juhn et al. (J Polit Econ 101:410-442, 1993) decomposition analysis reveals that gender wage differences are almost entirely driven by differences in characteristics (rather than either the returns to those characteristics or the residual). The greater average educational attainment of employed women, among other characteristics, tends to fully offset the gender wage gap. Not surprisingly, the returns to women’s education among employed women are low because there is little variation in educational attainment among the sample of well-educated employed women. When the analysis controls for sample selection bias and heterogeneity, the returns to women’s education rise, confirming the lower productivity-related characteristics of non-employed women compared to employed women. The relatively small sample constrains a fuller analysis of the emergence of the gender wage gap, which, according to a small but growing international literature, typically materializes during childbearing years.

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In this paper, we report returns to education in India using unit level data from the nationwide Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2018-19. OLS estimates from the classical Mincerian equation are presented. Various econometric techniques (e.g., conventional IV and heteroskedasticity-based IV models) are used to address endogeneity and sample selection issue. For regular workers, compared to those with no formal education, an additional year of literacy education increases yearly return by 2.3 per cent, primary education by 3.4 per cent, middle school education by 3.7 per cent, secondary school education by 4.5 per cent, higher secondary education by 5.8 per cent, graduate and diploma by 9.8 per cent, and postgraduate and above level of education by 8.2 per cent. We also find a widening of the wage distribution, with striking differences across social groups, sectors, locations. First, returns to middle-school and above level of education are higher for women than for men; second, returns to graduate and above level of education are higher for urban than for rural workers; third, returns to workers in the public sector are higher than returns in the private or third sectors; fourth, returns to the scheduled tribe are the highest across all the castes. Over the last decade, returns to education have reduced. We provide evidence showing that this may be because more people hold higher levels of education qualifications, while the demand for skills remains quite stable. Overall, our policy suggestion is that in India, as in other low- middle-income countries, especially in rural areas, it is important to increase primary and secondary level of education in rural areas, and the tertiary level in urban areas and to equalize the life chances of some social groups.

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In this paper, we make an attempt to understand whether low labour market returns to education in India are responsible for low female work participation. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) Employment Unemployment Survey (EUS) unit level data of India for the year 2011-12 is used to examine the relationship between educational attainment and labour market participation through gender lens. Results show that women's education has a U-shaped relationship with paid work participation. The probability to participate in the paid labour market shows an increasing trend with education levels higher than compulsory secondary schooling. The labour market returns to education are insignificant and low for lower levels of education. The returns increase significantly along with the increase in educational levels. However, females have a significant lower rate of return for each year of education as compared to men in rural and urban labour markets as well. Though it has been said that increase in female enrolment in schooling is one of the reasons of the recent declining phenomenon of female participation, but our study shows that the low returns to education is another reason for their less participation. The findings therefore suggest that, women need to be educated above secondary level to become visible in the labour market.

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The human capital theory postulates that investment in education enhances the productive capacity of individuals, while according to the signalling hypothesis the value of a graduation diploma follows from the fact that it signals innate abilities of its holder. We apply the approach proposed by Wiles (1974) to test for the signalling hypothesis and, in particular, to find out if there is a positive relation between education and productivity. For this purpose, we construct a job match index based on information if school provided knowledge and skills are useful at work and the job performed is relevant to the field of study. Then we check if the quality of job matching is related to wages of graduates in Poland. To answer this question, we conduct econometric analysis on the basis of data from a representative, nationwide tracer survey of Poles who left secondary schools or graduated from higher education institutions (HEI) over the period of 1998-2005.

We find that only the HEI graduates obtain a wage premium from skills acquired in the course of formal education. They are rewarded for both high usefulness of skills acquired while studying and for high relevance of the job performed to their field of study. We also find that soft and hard skills acquired at HEIs are rewarded by employers differently. Soft skills are rewarded most highly when they are very useful and the job is completely relevant to the field of study, while the hard-applied skills bring a high wage premium when they are very useful but not completely relevant. Finally, we argue that our results support the weak signalling hypothesis for HEI graduates as this group obtain a positive wage premium from both their degree and the quality of job matching at the same time.

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In this paper, we use the Chinese General Social Survey data (2010-2017) to analyze the dynamics of returns to different education qualifications. We find increasing returns for all types of education, with returns to vocational and academic education increasing roughly at the same speed. We additionally compare the returns to vocational education with returns to academic education. Compared to those who only complete compulsory education, upper secondary graduates earn about 20 per cent more, vocational college graduates earn 50 per cent, and academic university graduates earn 75 per cent more. At tertiary level, academic education pays better than vocational education, although the difference shrinks over the years. At upper secondary level, the evidence is indeterminate, depending on different econometric techniques (i.e., [ordinary least squares] OLS, [instrumental variables] IV, Lewbel method, or [propensity score matching] PSM). These findings add to the limited quantitative evidence on returns to vocational education. The dynamics emerged from the findings echo the discussion on labor market mismatch and overeducation in China, which has important policy implications.

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Italy has an immobile social structure. At the heart of this immobility is the educational system, with its high direct, but especially indirect cost, due to the extremely long time necessary to get a degree and to complete the subsequent school-to-work transition. Such cost prevents the educational system from reallocating the best opportunities to all talented young people and from altering the 'typical' market mechanism of intergenerational transfer of human capital and social status. About 10 years after the Bologna declaration and the '3+2' reform of the university system, AlmaLaurea data relative to 2008 shows a framework not much different from that of 2000. This is apparent by looking at the socio-educational background of university graduates. Parents' educational level seems to be the main determinant of the probability to get a university degree and to get it with the highest possible grade. As previous studies have also shown, the effect of the socio-educational background on children success at the university is not direct, but through the high school track. In fact, although any secondary high school gives access to the university, nonetheless lyceums provide students with far higher quality of education than technical and professional schools.

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