Abstract:

The objective of this work is to analyse the evolution of overeducation during the economic crisis by fields of study of higher education graduates. For this purpose, we have used the surveys of the university graduates from the Agencia per la Qualitat del Sistema Universitari de Catalunya (AQU), editions of 2004 and 2014. We assumed the subjective definition of overeducation and we used descriptive statistics methodology, with contingency tables for each period, to process the responses of the graduates surveyed. In these tables the answers of the individuals about the field of study, the developed work and the relation between level of education and tasks of job, for each sex had been crossed. On first exploration of the data, we found as a clear evidence an overall increase in the percentage of overeducation by almost 6 percentage points. A deeper analysis shows important differences among fields of study chosen by the graduates, highlighting, on the one hand, the high overeducation of the humanities and arts, and on the other hand, the low level of overeducation of health sciences. Gender was considered as a variable in the analysis, but no significant gender differences have been observed in overeducation.
Furthermore, the evolution of overeducation during the economic recession period is related to two main factors: structural changes in the productive system and the policies during the economic crisis.

Keywords:

Overeducation, fields of study, higher education, graduates.