Findings suggest that around 40% of workers are mismatched by field at their qualification level, 11% overqualified in their field and 13% overqualified and working outside their field.
In line with the argument of status reproduction we find that chances are higher when parents have an intermediate school certificate and are at occupational qualification level.
Graduates from fields that are more saturated are more likely to be working in other fields, both at their qualification level and below their qualification levels; they are also less likely to be overqualified in their own field.
Most graduates will hope to gain employment at the level of their qualifications and in the field of specialisation (i.e. well-matched) and avoid employment that is both in another field and at a lower qualification level.
On average across these countries, 25% of dependent workers are mismatched by field but working at an adequate qualification level (mismatched horizontally, but not vertically); 11% are overqualified in their field and 13% are overqualified and working in another field.
Investing in retraining or providing alternative career paths so that mismatched workers can earn a credential in a new field at their same qualification level may help the labour market prospects of mismatched workers who are forced to downgrade and also reduce the risks associated to field-of-study mismatch which appear when workers have to downgrade.
Fields-of-study that provide more transferrable skills offer their graduates more opportunities to find work in other fields and increase the likelihood that in the event of field-of-study mismatch, workers can find jobs at the adequate qualification level, thus reducing the costs associated with field-of-study mismatch.
Importantly, however, results from this study suggest that field-of-study mismatch need not be considered negative per se, as workers who find a job at their correct qualification level but in another field do not experience a statistically significant wage penalty in most countries.
Migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa (predominantly South African) are more likely to be undereducated than the NZ-born at most qualification levels.
Among the 10 major ISCO-88 occupational groups, two were of interest here: group 2 "professionals" (generally well-trained workers in jobs that normally require a university or advanced-level degree for recruitment) and group 3 "technicians and associate professionals" (generally requiring skills at a non-university educational qualification level).
