Do Young People Acquire Excessive Education? Overqualification Among Recent Post-Secondary Graduates in Canada

Overqualification is often considered to indicate an unsatisfactory outcome for young people, recently completing education. Those overqualified have invested time and money in higher education acquiring knowledge and skills for which they are unable to secure recognition. However, in Canada and elsewhere overqualification is unequally distributed across cohorts. These observations raise the following questions: i) What proportion of young people is overqualified? ii) What are the causes of overqualification? iii) Have the prevalence and causes of overqualification shifted over time? Using Canada’s National Graduate Survey we examine these issues using survey data on graduate cohorts in 2000, 2005, and 2010. Each of these cohorts was interviewed two or three years after graduation. This allows us to estimate early rates of overqualification and its determinants. It also allows estimates for distinct cohorts at three different periods.