How Do Workers Think about the Relationship between Their Job and Their Degree? Evidence from the Science and Engineering Workforce. Research Report
Author: Kuehn, Daniel
Date: 2018-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Employee Attitudes,College Graduates,Outcomes of Education,Individual Characteristics,Responsibility,On the Job Training,Professional Associations,Credentials,Relevance (Education),Labor Market,STEM Education,Majors (Students),Employment Qualifications,Knowledge Level

College graduates do not always use what they learn during school in their day-to-day work. In many cases, this disconnect between school and work is natural. Most jobs, even jobs closely related to a worker's field of study, include administrative and employer-specific tasks that are not taught in school. But sometimes workers do not use what they learn in school because they are employed far outside their field of study. Concerns about low levels of job relatedness have been particularly acute for science and engineering graduates. Research on job relatedness drives public debates about science and engineering worker shortages and occupational pathways. If science and engineering graduates are not using their education on the job, it could indicate a serious waste of human capital. The most common data source for studying job relatedness is the National Science Foundation's National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG), which asks respondents about how their work on their &quot;principal job&quot; relates to their &quot;highest degree.&quot; A better understanding of the job relatedness question will improve research on job relatedness and will be valuable for future revisions of the NSCG survey instrument. To fill this knowledge gap, the authors analyze the NSCG to identify the individual and job characteristics that induce respondents to identify their job as related to their highest degree. This report is the first focused attempt to understand how respondents think about the job relatedness question in the NSCG. It begins with a review of two important literatures: studies on the costs of low job relatedness for workers and studies that develop the &quot;task approach&quot; to labor markets, which provides a theoretical basis for our qualitative and quantitative data analyses. After the literature review, the authors explore whether differences in job relatedness are explained by differences in knowledge requirements on the job. Though knowledge requirements for a respondent's field of study are strongly associated with job relatedness, they do not explain all observed variation in job relatedness. The authors then analyze quantitative data from the NSCG and qualitative data collected during interviews to identify the factors contributing to workers' assessments of job relatedness. In addition to knowledge requirements, job tasks, federal support for research, and membership in professional associations are closely associated with job relatedness. Management tasks, which are typically contrasted with research and development responsibilities, were positively related to job relatedness in both the NSCG analysis and the interviews. This report concludes with a discussion of major themes and recommendations for future NSCG waves.