Over-education, Educational-job Mismatch, and Skills of Job seekers with Tertiary Education in the Labor Market of Iran

This study was aimed at exploring the correlation among over-education, educational-job mismatch and the skills of university graduate jobseekers in the labor market of Iran. Its prime objective was to find out whether skills of jobseekers could leave a significant effect on the reduction of educational mismatch. To this end, at first, the concepts of educational-mismatch and over-education are introduced. Then, the theoretical bases of the relationship between skill and educational-mismatch in labor market are analyzed. Finally, through micro-data taken from local jobseekers with university degrees who registered in private job-finding agencies (JFAs) in Urmia in 2015, this relationship was estimated in this descriptive case-study. Out of a population of 3481 job applicants with tertiary education (bachelor’s or above degrees), 366 were selected based on random sampling. Regression analysis and Logit model were utilized to investigate this relationship. In our regression analysis, over-education was considered as the dependent variable, while age, gender and skill acted as explanatory variables. The findings of this study indicate that with rising qualifications of the university graduate job applicants, the possibility of over-education and education-occupation mismatch increases, but there is negative correlation with age and probability of educational mismatch