Table 1 Measurements of Mismatch
From: Imbalanced Job Polarization and Skills Mismatch in Europe
| Â | Idea | Advantages | Disadvantages |
Normative | Use a pre-determined mapping between the job and the required education level | Easily measurable Objective | Assumes constant mappings over all jobs of a given occupation Costly to create and update the mapping |
Statistical | The overeducated are those with education level higher by some ad-hoc value than the mean or mode of the sample within a given occupation | Easily measurable Objective Always up-to-date | Assumes constant mappings over all jobs of a given occupation Sensitive to cohort effects Results depend on the level of aggregation of occupations |
Self-assessment | Respondents are asked about their perceptions of the extent their education or skills are used in their job | Always up-to-date Corresponds with requirements in the individual firm | Subjective bias: respondents may overstate job requirements, inflate their status or reproduce actual hiring standards |
Income-ratio\(^{a}\) | Overeducation is a continuous variable measured by comparing actual and potential income | Reflects that one of the goals of investment in education is maximising income | Indirect measure, can be influenced by many other factors |