# **5. Results**

# **_5.1. Incidence of overeducation_**

Applying the limits defined in Section 4.1 and detailed in Table 9, we find that 16% of the immigrants in our sample are overeducated, compared with 11% of native Danes (Table 10).<sup>36</sup> It is important to note that these overeducation shares are based on the full samples, i.e. including workers who have only primary or secondary schooling. As discussed in Section 4.1, such workers cannot – by the definition used here – be overeducated, and so they pull the shares down. Below (in Table 13) we calculate overeducation shares based on the sub-sample of workers with either vocational or higher education, i.e. for those who can in fact – by the definition used here – risk being overeducated. These shares are of course somewhat higher than those reported in Table 10 (and Tables 11-12).

Returning to Table 10, we find that there are of course differences related to ethnicity. While 24% of Iraqi immigrants are overeducated, only 8% of Turkish immigrants are so. Low levels of education among Turks mean that many of them cannot, by definition, be overeducated. In fact 38% are undereducated. Furthermore, the quality of the job-to-education match seems to depend on where an immigrant has his education from. Among those with a Danish education, 73% are adequately matched compared with 60% of those with foreign-acquired education (Table 11). Table 12 shows the share of overeducated immigrants by ethnic origin and source of education. With two exceptions (immigrants from Vietnam and Iraq) higher shares of overeducated workers are found among immigrants with a foreign-acquired education compared with immigrants with a Danish education. The largest differences are observed for immigrants from Iran, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia.

As discussed above, individuals with either primary or secondary schooling as their highest attained level of education cannot – by the definition used here – be overeducated. Indeed, in Table 13, which shows the incidence of overeducation at different levels of education, one sees that the shares of overeducated among individuals with primary or secondary schooling are zero. If one calculates the shares of overeducated in relation to the sub-sample of individuals with either a vocational education or a higher education (short, medium or long) as opposed to measuring the shares of overeducated in relation to the full sample (i.e. including those with primary or secondary schooling), one finds that the shares of overeducated are somewhat higher: 15% for native Danes and 25% for immigrants (‘Weighted total’ in Table 13). Once again, there

> 36 In their meta-analysis of studies on overeducation, which covers all three types of measurement approaches (JA, WA, RM), Groot and Maassen van den Brink (2000) find that the incidence of overeducation varies from 10% to 42% and the average is lower in Europe (21.5%) than in the United States (26.3%). For the case of Australia, Linsley (2005) finds, using the WA approach, that close to 30% are overeducated. Using a JA approach, Green et al. (2005) find that less than 10% of native Australian are overeducated, whilst the figures are markedly higher for immigrants (19%-27%) and especially for immigrants from non-English speaking countries (32%-40% for different entry cohorts). For UK immigrants, Lindley and Lenton (2006) find, using the RM approach, that 63% of male immigrants are overeducated against 37% of male natives. Using a different and older survey on ethnic minorities in Britain, Battu and Sloane (2002), also using a form of RM approach, find that around a third of non-whites are overeducated, with significant differences between the various ethnic groups. Importantly, they find that when incorporating foreign qualifications into their measure, all ethnic minority groups display levels of overeducation above 30%. There is a decreasing trend in the US, (Gottschalk and Hansen 2003 and Handel 2003), while there seems to be evidence of an increasing trend in Europe (see e.g. Green 2006 on Britain and le Grand et al. 2004 on Sweden).

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