‘Mind the mismatch?’ Incidence, drivers, and persistence of African youths' skill and educational mismatches

This paper examines the incidence, drivers, and persistence of skill and educational mismatches among employed youths from 10 African countries surveyed between 2012 and 2015. Results indicate that, unlike most findings from developed countries, underskilling and undereducation are more prevalent among the youth than overskilling and overeducation. The levels of education of the youth and their parents, the field of study, the quality of job and the firm size are found to be key predictors of job mismatches. Our results also show that the perspective of unemployment has a scarring effect for underskilled youths but a stepping-stone effect for overskilled and overeducated. Using a pseudo-panel approach, skill and educational mismatches of youths are found to be persistent over time and the likelihood of transitioning into education matching jobs is significantly increasing with the levels of education. © 2020 African Development Bank