Heterogeneous effects of job education mismatch on wage earnings among graduates in educational science and teacher education in Vietnam

This paper examines the job–education mismatch among graduates in educational science and teacher education in Vietnam. We find that approximately 14.3% of graduates work in jobs unrelated to their field of study. This share is higher among male graduates (21.1%) than among female graduates (12.0%). Using mean regression estimates, we observe that job mismatch is positively correlated with wages, suggesting a small wage premium among mismatched graduates. However, quantile regression results reveal heterogeneous patterns: job mismatch is linked to lower wages for graduates at the lower end of the wage distribution but to higher wages for those at upper quantiles. These findings indicate that job mismatch is associated with different outcomes across the wage distribution—disadvantaging low-wage workers while benefiting middle- and high-wage earners. The results further imply that analyses based solely on mean regressions may overlook important distributional differences. To our knowledge, this study provides new evidence highlighting the need for wage policies that support job-matched graduates at lower wage percentiles to promote more equitable labor-market outcomes.