171 M.C. Daly et al. Economics of Education Review 19 2000 169–178
Much of the overeducation literature has focused on the question of whether labor markets can adapt to
changes in the educational capital of the employee base as the neoclassical model predicts. If labor markets do
adapt then any mismatch of education and job require- ments is a short-run phenomenon and will be eliminated
as employers alter technology to take advantage of a more educated work force. Moreover, surplus education
will yield a positive return as it increases the productivity of workers in any technology. If, however, production
technologies are inflexible and cannot exploit the bene- fits of more educated workers, then surplus education
will yield zero returns. An important question in this framework is to what extent a firm’s ability to adapt and
take advantage of a more educated workforce is related to the level of flexibility in the labor market. By compar-
ing the returns on overeducation between the United States and Germany we can more directly address this
issue.
In contrast to the United States labor market, the Ger- man labor market is heavily influenced by both govern-
ment and unions. This involvement results in a labor market more regulated and less flexible than the one
operating in the United States. Yet, despite these differ- ences, researchers have consistently demonstrated unex-
pected cross-country similarities in outcomes such as returns to education Couch, 1994, wage growth and
mobility Burkhauser, Holtz-Eakin Rhody, 1997 and wage and income inequality Burkhauser Poupore,
1997. As in the cross-time analysis for the United States, we treat the well-documented institutional differ-
ences between Germany and the United States as exogenous. Since our focus is on the overall differences
similarities in returns on education rather than in the effects of any particular institutional factor, this assump-
tion should not affect our analysis.
4. Data
Our information on the extent and economic effects of overeducation in the United States and Germany
comes from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 1976 and 1985 waves and The German Socio-Economic
Panel 1984 wave, respectively. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics PSID is an ongoing longitudinal sur-
vey that provides information on a representative national sample of over 5000 households. Interviews are
usually conducted with the ‘head’ of each family, who is defined as the husband or male partner in male–female
relationships and is asked to provide detailed individual level information about himself, his spouse and all other
individuals in the family aged 16 and older. Note that this implies that information on the earnings and edu-
cation of men and women who are not heads of their own households will be reported by proxy. However,
comparisons of earnings data in the Current Population Survey and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics show
similar trends Fitzgerald, Gottschalk Moffitt, 1998. Like the PSID, the German Socio-Economic Panel
GSOEP is a longitudinal micro-database containing nationally representative socio-economic information on
over 6000 German households and their members. The panel began in 1984 and has been fielded annually over
the last 13 years. The data contain an oversample of immigrant worker households, but can be weighted to be
nationally representative. Although the GSOEP currently contains a East German sample, this did not begin until
1990 and thus is not included in our analysis. The GSOEP project is directed by the German Institute for
Economic Research DIW, Berlin.
Each of these panels collects information on individ- ual earnings and a broad set of individual demographic
and socio-economic characteristics. In addition, the 1976 and 1985 surveys of the PSID and the 1984 survey of
the GSOEP asked individuals about formal education requirements on their job. As usual in international
analyses, questions about the comparability of the survey items arise. Questions from the two surveys read as fol-
lows. In the PSID the question asks, “How much formal education is required to get a job like yours?” Respon-
dents select from the following categories: 1 0–5 grades; 2 6–8 grades; 3 9–11 grades; 4 12 grades;
5 some college, associate degree; 6 college degree, B.A. or B.S.; and 7 advanced or professional degree.
The GSOEP question asks “What sort of training is usu- ally necessary to perform this job?” 1 no special train-
ing; 2 short period of on-the-job training; 3 more extensive
on-the-job training;
4 special
trainingcourses; 5 completion of regular vocational training;
6 completed
collegeuniversity degree.
Although the questions are not identical, we believe they are sufficiently similar to yield comparable analysis vari-
ables. Most importantly, the time frame for both ques- tions — current, rather than retrospective or regarding
the time at which the person took the job — is identical in both surveys.
Using these questions we create measures of years of required schooling. For the United States, we use the
mean value of each category computed over individuals who report they have exactly the amount of education
required for their job. Similarly, for Germany, we com- pute the mean duration of completed education among
correctly matched workers for each of the values men- tioned above. We compare these constructed variables
with reports on completed schooling to generate meas- ures of surplus or deficit education for each individual.
5. Sample
Our sample includes men and women aged 18–64 who were employed at the time of the survey and successfully
172 M.C. Daly et al. Economics of Education Review 19 2000 169–178
reported the information necessary to calculate their completed education, job-required education, wage rate,
and work experience. To ensure cross-national compar- ability our sample is restricted to non-black men and
women in the United States and West German citizens of German nationality.
2
In addition, we eliminate from the sample students, the irregularly part-time employed,
and the self-employed.
3
These exclusions provide us with samples of 3204 in the US for 1976, 4438 in the
US for 1985, and 3066 in Germany for 1984.
6. The extent of surplus and deficit education over time and across countries
Before examining the returns to surplus education over time and across countries we first describe its
extent. Table 1 presents the distribution of matched, sur- plus, and deficit education in the United States 1976 and
1985 and in Germany 1984 by gender. The extent of overeducation in the United States declined for both men
and women from 1976 to 1985. In 1976 nearly 40 of men and women were overqualified for their job. By
1985 this percentage had declined to a little over 30. This decline was statistically significant at the 5 level.
In contrast, the percentage of men and women with too little education for their job increased during the same
period; growing from 16.3 to 21.2 among men, and from 11.3 to 16.8 for women. This reduction in the
proportion of United States workers with surplus edu- cation and increase in the proportion with deficit edu-
cation occurred despite an increase in the average level of completed schooling.
Education and job mismatches are much less common in Germany. As the two rightmost columns of Table 1
show, German men are about half as likely to be overed- ucated and about 60 less likely to be undereducated
than working men in the United States. The same pattern holds for German women. However, in contrast to the
United States, in Germany it is women, rather than men,
2
The labor market experiences for black Americans and German immigrants have been shown to be significantly differ-
ent from the experiences of non-black Americans and Germans. Since the focus of this paper is on cross-national comparisons
and not on between group differences within the United States or Germany, we have chosen to exclude black Americans and
German immigrants from the analysis. There was no East Ger- man sample in 1984, so they also are excluded from the analy-
sis.
3
In the United States, the irregularly part-time employed are identified as those who work less than 500 hours per year. For
Germany, a direct question from the GSOEP is used to identify those who are irregularly part-time employed. Students and the
self-employed are excluded based on their own identification of their status.
who are more likely to be over- or undereducated. While years of schooling are not directly comparable across
countries, the differences in the average years of surplus and deficit education between men and women in the
United States and Germany indicate that even when mis- matches do occur in Germany the magnitude of the mis-
match is substantially smaller.
4
7. Components of human capital: education and experience
