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 DOI: 10.1177/0730888405274920

2005 32: 319Work and OccupationsVal Burris

Overeducation: Then and Now  

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10.1177/0730888405274920WORK AND OCCUPATIONS / August 2005Burris / OVEREDUCATION

OvereducationThen and Now

VAL BURRISUniversity of Oregon

Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery, by Ivar Berg. (Reissue of 1970book with a new introduction by the author.) Clinton Corners, NY: Percheron Press,2003. 200 pp. $34.50 (paper).

Overeducation has become a topic of increasing interest among social scientists. The reissue ofone of the seminal works on overeducation, Ivar Berg’s Education and Jobs, provides an occa-sion for some observations about the development of this literature. Advances have been made inour understanding of overeducation, but many of the broader sociological concerns raised in theearly literature are poorly addressed in the recent research.

Keywords: overeducation; labor market; employment; earnings; job satisfaction

The last half-dozen years has seen a growing interest among social sci-entists in the phenomenon of overeducation (i.e., in the growth of edu-

cational attainments in excess of the skill requirements of available jobs).Several reviews and meta-analyses of the research literature on overedu-cation have appeared recently. A special issue of Economics of EducationReview devoted to overeducation was published in 2000. Two years later, thefirst international conference on overeducation was hosted in Berlin bythe Max Planck Institute and the Dutch Research Center for Education andthe Labor Market. The Social Science Citation Index lists 58 journal articlesunder the topic heading Overeducation for the years 1975 to 2004, and ofthese, 42 have been published in just the last 6 years.

Against this backdrop, it is fitting that Percheron Press has chosen to reis-sue, as part of its Foundations of Sociology series, one of the seminal worksthat first brought public and scholarly attention to the mismatch between thegrowth of schooling and the skill requirements of jobs: Ivar Berg’s Educationand Jobs: The Great Training Robbery. Because the main themes of Berg’s

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classic work are likely to be familiar to most readers of this review, I will limitmyself to a brief summary and then turn to some observations about theimpact of the book and its relationship to the directions taken by over-education research in more recent years.

Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery cast a skeptical eyetoward some of the widely shared beliefs and dominant intellectual currentsin postwar American society. Substantively, the book challenged the seem-ingly unbounded faith that Americans placed in education as a cure to pov-erty, inequality, and other social ills. Theoretically, it contested the hegemonyof the economics profession, and especially human capital theory, to adjudi-cate the costs and benefits of educational expansion. Toward these ends, thebook assembled an impressive array of data to show that (a) the educationalattainments of workers have grown more rapidly than the skill requirementsof jobs; (b) the economic returns to additional years of education are not ade-quately explained by gains in productivity; (c) employers’ trust in educa-tional credentials as a screening device for desired worker traits is untestedand unfounded; (d) the increased importance given to educational credentialsin hiring unnecessarily limits the jobs available to disadvantaged groups; and(e) the placement of highly educated workers in jobs that do not utilize theskills or fulfill the aspirations acquired through schooling can lead to job dis-satisfaction, turnover, and other social and economic costs. It is fair to saythat the book was not well-received by the education establishment, but itstruck a responsive chord among a younger generation of students and edu-cators who were critical of the subordination of education to vocational aims,skeptical of the possibility of increasing productivity or reducing inequalitythrough schooling alone, and advocated worker empowerment and jobenrichment as the answers to unchallenging work and unsatisfying jobs.

Comparing Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery to therecent outpouring of research on overeducation reveals a number of strikingcontrasts. First, although Berg based his study entirely on U.S. data andframed his argument in relation to the peculiarities of American civic cultureand educational institutions, most of the recent research on overeducationhas focused on European societies. In part, this reflects the slower and laterexpansion of higher education in Europe relative to the United States, but italso points to a declining interest in overeducation among American scholarsonce some of the more dramatic consequences hinted at by Berg, such as asharp increase in worker alienation, failed to materialize. Of the 42 journalarticles published on overeducation in the last 6 years, 31 focus on Europeansocieties, 3 on the United States, 2 on Canada, 2 on Asia, and 4 are compara-tive. Second, it is evident that economists have made a concerted effort toreestablish their hegemony over discussions of the relationship between edu-

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cation and jobs. In the years following the publication of Education andJobs: The Great Training Robbery, much of the early, pathbreaking researchon overeducation was conducted by sociologists. By contrast, of the 42recent articles mentioned above, 35 were published in economics journals, 4in sociology, 1 in education, 1 in psychology, and 1 in an interdisciplinaryjournal.

Without question, the recent spate of studies on overeducation has addedto our knowledge of the relationship between schooling and the job market.The multinational and comparative thrust of much of this research can onlybe welcomed. And economists, in reasserting their claim over this area ofinquiry, have advanced the discussion in ways that reflect the qualities ofresearch most highly prized within their discipline. These include advancesin the measurement of overeducation; more precision in differentiatingamong such interrelated phenomena as overeducation, skill underutilization,qualification inflation, credentialism, labor market rigidities, job discrimina-tion, and the like; and the testing of sophisticated statistical models of thecauses, distribution, and consequences of overeducation.

These are impressive gains. Nevertheless, rereading Education and Jobs:The Great Training Robbery leaves this reviewer with a pronounced feelingthat something valuable has also been lost along the way. Berg’s text,although packed with statistical data, is able to convey a much stronger senseof the human face of overeducation than most recent studies (a notableexception would be the recent writings of Canadian sociologist DavidLivingstone). And although eschewing the temptation to pontificate, Bergalso manages to raise important and sweeping questions about the role ofeducation in a democratic society and the legitimacy of an economic systemthat is unable to put so much of its human talent to productive use. Combiningrigorous analysis, an accessible writing style, and the courage to challengeentrenched beliefs and vested interests, Berg’s Education and Jobs: TheGreat Training Robbery is certainly deserving of the Foundations of Sociol-ogy label. For those who may have missed the book the first time around, thisreissue is welcome and heartily recommended.

Val Burris is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. His currentresearch interests include corporate power structure, right-wing movements,and social networks. His recent publications include “The Two Faces of Capi-tal: Corporations and Individual Capitalists as Political Actors” and “TheAcademic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks,” inAmerican Sociological Review and “Interlocking Directorates and PoliticalCohesion Among Corporate Elites,” in American Journal of Sociology.

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