Education and effective labor market allocation: to what extent can job mismatches in Europe be affected by educational systems?

Despite the relevance of educational systems in for labor market allocation, researchers have only recently started to investigate the extent to which educational systems can affect horizontal mismatch (Wolbers, 2003; Verhaest and Van der Velden, 2012). Research has established that the existence of vocational tracks and the general quality of study programs can explain country differences in vertical and horizontal mismatches (Wolbers, 2003; Verhaest and Van der Velden, 2012).

The present contribution improves upon earlier studies in three ways.

1. To establish the extent to which education system properties affect horizontal mismatch in European countries, we systematically derive hypotheses on the extent to which educational system properties affect mismatch.
2. To establish the extent to which education system properties have a different effect on the vertical mismatch in European countries of different subgroups , we derive and test hypotheses on cross-level interactions between educational system properties and relevant individual characteristics.
3. To establish the extent to which education system properties have a different effect on the vertical mismatch in European countries of different subgroups , we derive and test hypotheses on cross-level interactions between educational system properties and relevant individual characteristics.