This section describes conclusions of research findings, and suggestions of this study are provided as well.
Conclusions
This study examined the phenomenon of education-employment mismatch among bachelor’s and master’s graduates who majored in engineering and technology, and the factors which might be correlated with education-employment mismatch were investigated as well. Based on the results, the purposes of the study were achieved, and the conclusions are drawn from the findings.
Firstly, Education-employment mismatch could be measured by two items, one item is mismatch (between job and major), and the other one is overeducation (in terms of the difference between the required educational level and one’s educational attainment). The results suggested that the bachelor’s graduates were significantly more mismatched than master’s graduates were. On the contrary, master’s graduates were more overeducated.
However, even though master’s graduates were more overeducated, the extent of overeducation for bachelor’s graduates was greater.
As expected, most of the bachelor’s graduates were less overeducated, that is they might probably find jobs which meet their educational level, and most of the master’s graduates were less mismatched, that is they might probably find jobs that meet their majors (Robst’s, 2007; Wang, 2000). This situation might result from employers’ distrust of the quality of bachelor’s graduates. As described in chapter one, the quality of bachelor’s graduates was not positively correlated with the growing quantity of them. Consequently, when there are two candidates who apply for the job which requires a bachelor degree, one holds a bachelor degree, and the other one holds a master degree, the organizations would recruit a candidate with a master degree. And according to the report revealed by DGBAS (2008), most IT jobs
require a junior college degree or above. Therefore, master’s graduates were more likely to have jobs which require less education. In addition, due to the distrust with bachelor’s graduates and the preference for master’s graduates, the opportunity of bachelor’s graduates obtaining jobs is decreasing. When they could not find a job meet their educational level, they might turn to find jobs which are unrelated or somewhat related to their majors.
Second, the mean jobsearch duration is one and a half months for all the respondents. As expected, the results indicated that master’s graduates could find jobs sooner than bachelor’s graduates do by a half month (Chen, 2008; Tao & Li, 2006). The finding might help prove that the master’s graduates were favored by the employers and the master degree might be fairly advantageous for master’s graduates to obtain employment.
In addition, of these nine work values, compensation, security, and benefit were fairly critical to most graduates, whereas work responsibility, work independence, and contribution to the society were not crucial to them relatively. The finding could imply that most participants paid attention to the extrinsic work values while they seek employment.
Moreover, the master’s graduates more emphasized the importance of security and work challenge among these work values. Thus, the extrinsic work values were important to both bachelor’s graduates and master’s graduates, while master’s graduates significantly concerned with certain intrinsic work values.
Then, the findings were compared to the previous literature review. According to the literature review, low educated people tend to focus on extrinsic work values, and high educated people had a strong expectation about intrinsic work values or self-fulfillment (Chiu, 1993; Li et al., 2008; Sinisalo, 2004). Thus, the findings were roughly constant with the literature review. The result that master’s graduates might concentrate more on the work challenge could be explained due to the emphasis on self-fulfillment. However, bachelor’s graduate did not place more value on extrinsic work value such as compensation.
on Pai’s study (1997), the result illustrated that low educated people more emphasized on the security than high educated people did because they probably encountered the problem of finding jobs.
Third, the factors, jobsearch duration and the perception of work values, which might be related to employment-education mismatch were discussed as well. First, as previous literature review illustrated, long-term joblessness people were possibly willing to be overeducated (Wang, 2000). The results of the study also show that the length of jobsearch duration was positively correlated with employment-education mismatch (overeducation and mismatch). Accordingly, the longer one’s jobsearch duration, the more likely one is willing to accept a job required less education than one has. Likewise, the longer one’s jobsearch duration, the more likely one is willing to get a job not or somewhat related to one’s major.
However, the correlation between jobsearch duration and employment-education mismatch was not significant.
On the other hand, the relationships between demographic profile and employment-education mismatch were found as well. Females and people who attended the private schools were more likely to be overeducated and mismatched. Compared with people who attended the public schools, people who attended the private schools could not easily find jobs, so they were probably willing to accept jobs that require less education and to accept jobs that not or only somewhat related to their majors. Additionally, people who worked in the public sector and people who worked in the private sector were both likely to gain jobs that meet their education (be properly educated) and to gain jobs that closely related to their majors (be matched), but people who worked in the public sector were more likely to properly educated and matched than people ho worked in the private sector.
Then, the perception of work values might be related to employment-education mismatch. According to the results, work values might be positively or negatively associated with employment-education mismatch (overeducation and mismatch). Those who concerned
for advancement might be overeducated whereas those who concerned for work challenge might be properly educated or find jobs that meet their educational level. Further, those who placed importance on work independence or advancement might tend to be mismatched, while those who placed importance on compensation or work challenge might be matched or find jobs that mostly or closely related to their majors.
The result of the study was consistent with the previous study that people might be willing to accept jobs with lower education requirement (be overeducated) because of the emphasis of advancement (Bender & Heywood, 2006). And it is reasonable that those who concerned for work challenge found jobs that meet with their degree or related to their majors.
However, the results were also contrary to the findings from the previous study. Instead of being mismatched, people might find jobs related to their majors due to the emphasis of compensation in this study. In fact, the previous literature review suggested that overeducation was positively associated with wages, while mismatch was negatively associated with wages (Borghans, Bruinshoofd & Grip, 2000; Cohn & Ng, 2000). Thus, in order to pursue better compensation, people might be willing to find jobs which require less education, but they might not be willing to find jobs unrelated to their majors. In addition, there is an interesting finding that people with the preference for work independence was probably mismatched.
At last, the relationship between work values and jobsearch duration was examined as well. The results suggested that perception of work challenge was significantly and negatively related to the jobsearch duration. Thus, people with perception of work challenge had shorter jobsearch duration. Coincidentally, master’s graduates placed more importance on work challenge, and they also had shorter jobsearch duration than bachelor’s graduates did.
On the other hand, jobsearch duration was not only correlated with one’s work values,
in the public sector possibly had longer jobsearch duration. Compared with those who attended the private schools, those who attended the public schools were often viewed as people with better ability, so they could find jobs sooner. And more people favored working in the public sector, so it is more difficult to obtain government employment.
Finally, the summary of research hypotheses was demonstrated in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1.
Summary of results of research hypotheses
Hypothesis Result
Hypothesis1: Educational attainment is significantly related to
education-employment mismatch.
Master’s graduates are significantly overeducated than bachelor’s graduates.
Bachelor’s graduates are significantly mismatched than master’s graduates.
Hypothesis 2: The jobsearch duration of master’s graduates is significantly shorter than that of bachelor’s graduates.
The jobsearch duration of master’s graduates is significantly shorter than that of bachelor’s graduates by nearly a half month.
Hypothesis 3: The perceived work values of bachelor’s graduates are significantly different from that of master’s graduates.
Significant differences in security and work challenge were found between bachelor’s graduates and master’s graduates.
Hypothesis 4: Jobsearch duration is significantly and positively related to overeducation.
Jobsearch duration was positively related to overeducation, but the relationship is not significant.
Hypothesis 5: The certain perceived work values are significantly and positively associated with
education-employment mismatch.
Work independence, advancement were significantly and positively associated to overeducation or mismatch.
Work challenge, compensation, and security were significantly and negatively associated to
overeducation or mismatch.
Hypothesis 6: Work values are
significantly associated with the length of jobsearch duration.
Perception of work challenge was significantly and negatively related to the length of jobsearch duration.
Suggestions
Although the issue of mismatch between employment and education is vital, this issue has not attracted much attention. Through this study, the phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education has been examined in terms of bachelor’s and master’s graduates who majored in the engineering and technology. And according to the results, the suggestions for employers, students, the government, and further study were offered as follows. In addition, the limitations of this study were addressed as well.
Suggestions for Employers
The results of this study indicated that master’s graduates could find jobs related to their majors. Nevertheless, most of them probably might be overeducated, that is they might find jobs that require less education. In addition, although most bachelor’s graduates could find jobs that meet their educational level, they might be mismatched, that is they might apply for jobs not or only somewhat related to their majors. Therefore, the underutilization of bachelor’s graduates and master’s graduates might help explain why employers faced the problem of recruiting IT staff. There were two possible explanations of the graduates being overeducated or mismatched. Based on the possible explanations, the suggestions were offered as well.
Recruit the candidate who meets the qualifications of the jobs
The first possible reason is the prejudice against the bachelor’s graduates or the prejudice in favor of master’s graduates. The result that the master’s graduates could find jobs sooner might imply that the master’s graduates were favored by the employers. Because of the prejudice, the jobs for bachelor’s graduates were probably taken by master’s graduates.
Consequently, when bachelor’s graduates look for jobs for a long time, they probably might turn to find jobs that not or somewhat related to their degree. Therefore, the phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education might result from the prejudice of the
personnel cost due to the fact that the basic salary of master’s graduates is higher than that of bachelor’s graduates. As a result, the companies perhaps could take into consideration the need of recruiting master’s graduates.
Companies could devise a strategy aimed at other work values to attract the jobseekers’
attention
Second, the other reason for mismatch is that jobseekers’ work values might not meet with what companies offered. As mentioned, graduates would rather be overeducated or mismatched if their work values were met. Based on the results, the preferred work values of graduates could be identified. Most graduates placed value on compensation, security, and benefit. Further, master’s graduates placed heavy emphasis on security and work challenge.
Hence, the companies could devise a strategy aimed at these work values to attract the jobseekers’ attention and interests. In fact, most companies would exploit compensation and benefit to grab the jobseekers’ attention while recruiting. For example, they would reveal the information about employee benefit policy. However, they neglected other vital work values such as advancement. They could attempt to exploit other work values as inducement to capture jobseekers’ attention.
Companies could utilize various channels to recruit staff
With the development of technology, most employers might recruit human resources through internet. However, jobseekers might look for jobs by other channels except internet.
Thus, employers could exploit other channels such as job fair to recruit appropriate staff.
Suggestions for Students
There are other ways to improve one’s employability besides educational attainment
The result indicated that master’s graduates could more quickly get jobs than bachelor’s graduates did. This might imply that companies probably did not trust the quality of bachelor’s graduates. Thus, higher educational attainment or a master degree might be helpful to apply for a job. Nevertheless, the purpose of studying further is not to find jobs sooner.
Though a master degree might be beneficial to find a job, a master degree is not the only way to enhance one’s employment competitiveness. In addition to higher educational attainment, there are other ways to prove to companies that one is competent. For instance, holding a license or broadening one’s experiences is also an approach to increasing one’s employment competitiveness.
Before deciding the majors, students could seek information about the majors
Additionally, the reason why jobseekers did not seek jobs mostly or closely related to their majors might be because they were not interested in their majors. In Taiwan, many high school graduates might be unaware of what major they were interested in, so they probably choose the popular majors. However, even though they recognized that they were not interested in what they majored, most students still studied on it. And after graduation, they were likely to apply for jobs not or somewhat related to their majors. Thus, the suggestion for students is that they could collect more information about the majors and then decide the majors. For instance, they could attend the university and college fair to obtain more information about the majors they would like to study on.
Suggestions for the Government
Compared with unemployment, the issue of mismatch between employment and education has attracted little attention. However, according to the results, there existed the phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education. Thus, although schools develop various human resources, human resources were not well utilized. The government should contemplate the problem of mismatch between employment and education as well as the problem of unemployment. The mismatch resulted in not only the squander of the teaching resources, but also the waste of human resources.
The policies could be open to students as well
Recently, the Ministry of Education and other ministries and councils have established
Cultivation and Employment Promotion, the Manpower Value Addition Program for Graduates from Colleges and Higher Level Institutions, and etc. These policies were designed not only to enhance jobseekers’ employment competitiveness, but also to reduce the gap between the academic learning in school and practical skills required in industries. However, these policies also can be used to alleviate the situation of university and college graduates being overeducated or mismatched. As mentioned, due to the distrust of the quality of bachelor’s graduates, the companies would prefer to recruit master’s graduates, and then bachelor’s graduates might have difficulty in finding jobs related to their majors. If the government could also introduces these policies in schools, namely apply to students, it might help increase the interaction between university and college students and companies, and then companies would raise the confidence of the quality of university and college graduates. Thus, companies might show less preference for recruiting master’s graduates, and bachelor’s graduates might be more likely to find jobs closely related to their majors.
The government can increase interdisciplinary education
As described previously, many high school graduates might choose popular majors as a result of unawareness of what major they were interested in. However, although they realize that they were not interested in what they majored, most students still studied on it. Hence, bachelor’s graduates probably might apply for jobs not or somewhat related to their majors.
Perhaps the government can refer to interdisciplinary education in American colleges and universities, so that high school graduates have opportunities of understanding what major they are interested in, and then decide the major. Thus, bachelor’s graduates might be more likely to find jobs closely related to their majors.
Suggestions for Further Study
The sample of the study was restricted to graduates who graduated in 2006 and majored in the mathematics and computation. Hence, further study could aim at other majors to compare the difference of results. In addition, there were various study showed that work
experience was negatively associated with education and employment mismatch (Cohn & Ng, 2000; Daly, Bu¨chel & Duncan, 2000). As a result, further study could survey more graduates to examine whether the work experience would be related to overeducation or mismatch as well.
Moreover, the further research could add other independent variables such as grade point average, participation in extracurricular activities, owning license or occupations to explore whether these factors were associated with education and employment mismatch.
Limitations
The limitations of the study were illustrated as follows. First, this study used a multiple regression technigue. However, the regression results might be sensitive to the sample size.
Therefore, the significance might result from the large sample size.
Due to the aim of the study, the sample was delimited to the bachelor’s graduates and master’s graduates who graduated in 2006 and majored in the mathematics and computation.
Thus, the results of the study could not represent the universal phenomenon of mismatch between education and employment in Taiwan. Further, because the data collected by the THEDS database were utilized in the study, the relationship between education and employment mismatch and some interesting independent variables could not be explored.
However, the findings of this study indicated that there existed the phenomenon of education-employment mismatch, and might explain why companies encountered difficulty in recruiting IT staff. Additionally, some factors which might be associated with education-employment mismatch were also examined, and these findings can serve as a foundation for the further study.
REFERENCES
Audas, R., Berde, E. & Dolton, P. (2005). Young unemployment and labour market transitions in Hungary. Education Economics, 13(1), 1-25.
Allen, J. & Van der Velden, R. (2001). Educational mismatches versus skill mismatches:
Effects on wage, job satisfaction, and on-the-job search. Oxford Economic Papers, 53(3), 434-452.
Badillo-Amador, L., & Vila-Lladosa, Luís E. (2006). Education mismatch and qualification mismatch: Monetary and non-monetary consequences for workers. Retrieved November 22, 2008, from http://www.roa.unimaas.nl/seminars/pdf2006/Badillo060516.pdf.
Badillo Amador, L., López Nicolás, Ánge, & Vila Lladosa, Luís E. (2008). Education and competence mismatches: Job satisfaction consequences for workers. Retrieved
November 22, 2008, from http://repositorio.bib.upct.es/dspace/bitstream/10317/688/1/
November 22, 2008, from http://repositorio.bib.upct.es/dspace/bitstream/10317/688/1/