Over-education and well-being: how does education-occupation mismatch affect the life satisfaction of university-educated immigrant and non-immigrant workers?

OBJECTIVE: The increased migration of skilled workers has resulted in a focus on the economic costs of their unsuccessful labor market integration. Few studies investigate the consequences of employment difficulties on immigrants' well-being. Researchers studying over-education and life satisfaction tend to only examine the general population despite high levels of over-education among skilled immigrants. This study examines the relationship between over-education and life satisfaction among both immigrant and native-born workers in Canada. Factors associated with immigrants specifically (e.g. years since migration) are also considered.

DESIGN: Descriptive and multivariate analyses are conducted using pooled data from the 2009 to 2014 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Ordinary-least-squares (OLS) regression models are estimated with life satisfaction as the outcome. The models are run separately for immigrant and Canadian-born workers, accounting for differences in the degree to which individuals are over-educated. There are 5826 immigrant respondents and 24,985 non-immigrant respondents.

RESULTS: Over-education was negatively associated with the life satisfaction of both immigrants and non-immigrants, although the effect was weaker among the immigrant population. Income was the main factor mediating the negative relationship between over-education and life satisfaction among immigrants. Moreover, the negative influence of over-education on life satisfaction weakened with immigrants' increased residence in Canada.

CONCLUSION: Although over-education was negatively associated with immigrants' life satisfaction, it had a stronger influence on the non-immigrant population. This may be due to differences in the reference groups to which immigrants and non-immigrants compare themselves when assessing their life satisfaction; over-education may be less influential to immigrants' life satisfaction because it is a common experience among immigrants. Additionally, over-education is less detrimental to immigrants' life satisfaction with increased time in the host country. This may be attributable to a shift in the importance immigrants assign to the employment domain of their life over time.