Beyond Economic Returns: Education–Occupation Mismatch, Job-Quality Pathways, and Inequality in Job-Related Well-Being

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 5: Well-being and Work

Abstract

Higher education has long been identified as a key driver of economic success. However, growing evidence indicates that in a rapidly changing contemporary economy, coupled with technological advancement, one’s educational attainment and the qualifications required in the labor market have been diverging. This phenomenon, termed “education-occupation mismatch”, is consequential. While much research links mismatch to economic disadvantages such as wage penalties, its non-economic implications remain underexplored. This gap is critical as recent research and policy trends increasingly prioritize multidimensional well-being as the essential target.

Indeed, some pioneering studies investigated the link between mismatch and well-being, providing important insights. However, evidence remains divided due to three primary reasons: (1) complexity of job-related well-being (JWB); (2) absence of comprehensive investigations into potential mechanisms connecting mismatches and consequences; (3) missing gender perspectives. Using longitudinal data from Understanding Society (UKHLS), the study moves beyond traditional economic perspectives of JWB by distinguishing between cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective JWB. It further examines how education–occupation mismatch shapes multidimensional JWB through multiple job-quality mechanisms, with particular attention to gender differences.

Our findings suggest that education–occupation mismatch is linked to JWB through a twisted structure of offsetting job-quality pathways, which may be overlooked without attention to multiple mediating mechanisms. Rather than generating uniformly negative outcomes, mismatch entails experiential trade-offs across work dimensions, whereby disadvantages along some pathways are accompanied by advantages along others (e.g., negative through job autonomy and positive through working hours under overeducation, and vice versa under undereducation). Moreover, these pathways are structured in a gendered manner: job autonomy constitutes the dominant channel among men, whereas working hours play a more prominent role for women. We therefore highlight the importance of shedding light on multiple job quality dimensions as mediating mechanisms to better understand the nuanced association between education-occupation mismatches and JWB.

Authors

• Yue Qu, the University of Hong Kong

• Satoshi Araki, University of Hong Kong