ABSTRACT

In this study we investigate the educational attainment of the labour force in the United States. Our data analysis, based on Bureau of Labour Statistics data in more than 700 occupations, produced two important findings. First, we observed that the Overeducation Ratio (share of employees that are overeducated), which began to rise in the United States as early as 1970, continued its positive trend in many occupations during 2002–2016. Second, our regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between the overeducation ratio and the median earnings of an occupation. Since a larger overeducation ratio implies that a larger share of adequately educated individuals are crowded out, this result suggests that the displacement of adequately educated individuals is more severe in better paying occupations. Third, we analysed the overflow of graduate degree holders into occupations that require a bachelor’s degree. We observe that graduate degree holders are crowding out the bachelor’s degree holders from better paying bachelor’s occupations. The bachelor’s degree holders, in turn, are crowding out high school graduates from better paying high school jobs.

摘要

在这项研究中，我们调查了美国劳动力的教育程度。我们基于美国劳工统计局700多个职业的数据进行的数据分析得出了两个重要发现。首先，我们观察到，教育过度率（受过高等教育的雇员比例）早在1970年就在美国开始上升，在2002-2016年期间，它在许多职业中都保持了积极的趋势。其次，我们的回归分析显示，过度教育比率与职业的中位数收入之间呈正相关。由于较高的过度教育比率意味着更多受过良好教育的人被排挤了，因此这一结果表明，受过良好教育的人的流离失所在薪资较高的职业中更为严重。第三，我们分析了研究生学位持有者向需要学士学位的职业中溢出的情况。我们观察到，研究生学位持有人正在将学士学位持有者从薪水更高的职业中挤出来。反过来，学士学位持有者则将高薪毕业生从高薪的高中职位中挤出来。