Abstract

Migrants have a higher risk of being overeducated compared to natives (Chiswick/Miller, 2009). Overeducation means that the level of education exceeds the level of job requirements (Büchel, 1998). Past research focused on human capital explanations in order to shed light on the migrants’ higher risk of overqualification (Dustmann/Fabbri, 2003). Still, with human capital labour market success cannot be fully explained (Kalter, 2006). Therefore, we examine the influence of social capital on the migrants’ risk of being overeducated.
We use Montgomery’s (1992) sequential search model in order to investigate the influence of social capital on overeducation. The sequential search method describes that better connected individuals have an advantage, because they have a higher job offer arrival rate than individuals that search only via formal ways. This higher job offer arrival rate leads to a lower risk of being overeducated (Franzen/Hangartner, 2006).
Migrants and natives have a lower risk of being overducated if they also employ informal search strategies, but the effect of informal methods is likely to vary between migrants and natives, because of a mechanism called homophily (Mouw, 2006). Migrants’ have mainly contacts to other migrants’ that have less knowledge about the structure of the labour market of the host country and less beneficial contacts than natives. We deduce that informal search strategies are more advantageous for natives.
There are not just differences between natives and migrants, but also within migrants. Social integration has an effect on overeducation. We assume that more friendship ties to natives reduce a migrants’ risk of being overeducated, because they receive information from locals that is specific to host country and thus more effective (Haug, 2003).
We use data from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample 2013 and 2014. First results of the logistic regressions show that migrants with vocational training and migrants with higher education have a higher risk of being overeducated, if they use informal search methods. Furthermore, social integration reduces the risk of being overeducated for migrants with vocational training, but there is no effect for those with higher education.