By Zhou Lingling, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC & Guo Rui, Research Center for Economic Management, Hunan University

Research Report, No.148, 2018 (Total 5423) 2018-9-6

Abstract: This report explores the influence of college graduates’ education background, specialty and job matching on their salary and job satisfaction from the perspective of human capital allocation. Besides the characteristics of individuals, types of work and cities, it is found that the education background and specialty mismatches have a significant negative impact on the salary and job satisfaction of college graduates. Female graduates have a higher rate of mismatch than boys, and graduates majoring in arts and humanities have the highest mismatch rate. In short, “mismatch between specialties and employment” is not conducive to giving full play to the potential value of human capital. Suggestions are as follows: we need to give full play to the role of the government, strengthen the construction of the labor market and vigorously develop the human resources service industry; we need to pay more attention to the coordination between the industrial structure, education structure, employment structure and the stage of economic development; college students need to improve the employment competitiveness, and the employers should provide suitable positions for employees through job tests, vocational training, post transfer and other means, and expand the space for employees’ career development; and colleges and universities need to keep pace with the times, adjust and optimize their curricula and teaching plans.

Key words: mismatch of education background, mismatch of specialty, college graduates, employment quality