Does Education-Occupation Mismatch Affect Fertility?

Binjie Jing , Shanghai University

Does education-occupation mismatch affect fertility? Education-occupation mismatch means that labours' education qualifications are higher than the job requires. Based on status inconsistency theory and the negative consequences of education-occupation mismatch, this study aims to give evidence that education-occupation mismatch influences fertility at an individual level. This study uses the survey data to demonstrate that mismatched status is associated with lower birth size at the individual level. However, distinguishing slight and serious over-qualification shows gender heterogeneity: For females, both slight and serious over-qualification accounts for birth size decrease. For males, slight over-qualification is still associated with lower birth size, while serious over-qualification increases the birth size. The serious over-qualification relates to a heavier degree of mismatch but also to a willing education-occupation mismatch. This study implicates the influence of education-occupation mismatch on fertility as having gender heterogeneity and degree heterogeneity but does not get evidence of educational heterogeneity. This study provides empirical evidence for EOM as a factor in low fertility. This finding explores the consequence of education-occupation mismatch on fertility.

See paper

 Presented in Session P1. Fertility, Family, Life Course