Impacts of educational mismatches on job satisfaction. The case of university graduates in Cambodia

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-07-2018-0229
• Date: 09 September 2019
• Pages: 84-99
• Published date: 09 September 2019
• Author: Vichet Sam
• Subject Matter: Economics

Impacts of educational

mismatches on job satisfaction

The case of university graduates in Cambodia

Vichet Sam

National Bank of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and

Royal University of Law and Economics, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

Purpose –Education-job mismatches, especially overeducation or vertical mismatch, are generally found to

lower the worker’s job satisfaction, which may generate the counter-productive behaviors, such as high rates

of absenteeism and turnover in developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of

educational mismatches from their both forms and dimensions (match, overeducation, horizontal mismatch

and double mismatch) on the job satisfaction among university graduates in Cambodia.

Design/methodology/approach –To deal with the sample selection bias owing to the unobserved job

satisfaction of unemployed graduates, this paper applies the Heckman probit model on a survey conducted

with 19 higher education institutions in Cambodia.

Findings –Results indicate that a half of graduates suffer at least one type of educationalmismatchandtheboth

forms of mismatches adversely affect the job satisfaction with the strongest impact from the double mismatch case.

Research limitations/implications –The authors take into account the sample selection bias, but are not

able to deal with the unobserved heterogeneity, such as individual competences and preferences. With the

panel data, it would be possible to isolate those individual fixed effects.

Practical implications –The findings underline the importance of improvement in the quality of higher

education in Cambodia that seems to play a main role in this education-job mismatch problem. Creating the

occupational counseling for the high school students would be also helpful to orientate students to the majors

strongly needed by the labor market.

Originality/value –This paper focuses on all forms and dimensions of mismatches and takes into account

the sample selection bias in the context of a low-income country where the increasing rate of enrollment in

higher education seems to be accompanied by an increasing rate of education-job mismatches. Previous

research works focused mostly on overeducation and in developed countries.

Keywords Higher education, Job satisfaction, Heckman probit regression, Sample selection bias,

Vertical and horizontal educational mismatches

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

The average level of education has risen successively and considerably worldwide during

the past several decades (Barro and Lee, 2001; OECD, 2014). This increase in educational

levels has positively contributed to individual earnings and economic growth as predicted

by the human capital theory (Becker, 1964) and endogenous growth theory (Lucas, 1988),

yet vertical educational mismatch or overeducation also has emerged as a serious concern,

particularly in developed countries. Overeducation refers to an excess of education, beyond

the level needed to perform a certain job (Rumberger, 1981; Hartog, 2000). Besides

overeducation, horizontal mismatch also exists when people’s occupations do not match

their fields of education (Robst, 2007). The existence of these mismatches raise questions on

their effects on individual outcomes in the labor market, such as the job satisfaction.

From the sociological perspective, education-job mismatches adversely affect job

satisfaction because the worker’s expectations on the social position and type of work are

not fulfilledlike they thought whenthey invested in theirhigher education (Capsada-Munsech,

2017). The job dissatisfaction may create counter-productive behaviors, such as high rates of

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 41 No. 1, 2020

pp. 84-99

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-07-2018-0229

Received 23 July 2018

Revised 20 April 2019

Accepted 31 July 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7720.htm

JEL Classification —I23, I25, J24, J28

84

IJM

41,1

absenteeism and turnover, which can harm firm productivity and subsequently economic

growth (Tsang and Levin, 1985). Additionally, th e lack of pleasure in the job, may deteriorate

the workers’mental health and make them depressed (Kornhauser, 1965; Gal et al., 2008;

Bracke et al., 2013; Artés et al., 2014). Hence, this may also provoke negative effects on the

country’s development.

In Cambodia[1], concern on the education-job mismatches among university graduates

also exist, even though the enrollment rate in higher education is still low. This could be

very costly for the development of Cambodia if these mismatches have negative effects on

individual outcome such as job satisfaction, which may also discourage younger generation

to invest in their education in the future.

Thus, this paper aims at examining the impacts of educational mismatches on the job

satisfaction among university graduates in Cambodia. This paper is structured as follows:

Section 2 reviews the literature, Section 3 describes the data, Section 4 presents descriptive

statistics, Section 5 describes the method and results and Section 6 concludes.

2. Literature review

Job satisfaction is a positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job

experiences (Locke, 1976). Several factors may affect an employee’s job satisfaction. For

instance, in the two-factor theory, Herzberg et al. (1959) mentioned that job satisfaction and

dissatisfaction are explained by differ ent factors, called motivation and hygiene,

respectively. Factors that relate to job satisfaction are called motivators and include

achievement (placing employees in a position that use their talents well), recognition

(the honor given to employees for an outstanding performance), work itself (showing

employees that their work is crucial for the company), responsibility (giving employees

power to decide and be responsible for their decisions), opportunity for advancement

(promoting employees to a higher position based on their performance); while the factors

that relate to job dissatisfaction are salary, working condition (work environment and

facilities), company policy and administration (an organization’s policies and procedures

should be clear), interpersonal relationships (good relations with peers, managers and

subordinates), status (an employee’s social rank in a group) and job security (a freedom from

the layoff threat). Job characteristic theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) also proposes a

framework in which there are a number of core job characteristics that impact job

satisfaction: skill variety (the degree to which a job requires various skills and abilities), task

identity (the degree to which workers are involved in the entire process), task significance

(the degree to which the job affects other people’s lives), job autonomy (the degree to which

the job provides the employee with significant freedom or independence) and job feedback

(the degree to which workers receive information about their performance).

Based on these two theories, we formulate four hypotheses to be tested:

H1. Jobs that provide higher economic and social rewards (salary, career prospects and

job status) would make employees more satisfied with their jobs.

H2. Jobs that allow for a higher level of personal development (learning new things,

having new challenges and autonomy) would increase the employees satisfaction.

H3. Jobs with a higher quality of life (having enough time for family and leisure) should

make people more happy with their jobs.

H4. Jobs making employees feel they have done something useful for the society should

increase their job satisfaction.

Based on the job satisfaction theories mentioned above, we can also see that when a

university graduate is not working in a job that fits his education acquired, he may be less

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