TITLE:
Youth Labour Market Frictions in Main MENA Region Countries: Sources and Consequences
AUTHORS:
Jihène Jebeniani, Jamel Trabelsi
KEYWORDS:
Educational Mismatch, Matching, Over-Education, Return to Education, Wage Penalty
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.11 No.10,
October
30,
2020
ABSTRACT: We propose to evaluate the impact of education/skill
mismatch through an extended version of Duncan and Hoffman equation and
matching method by using the SWTS conducted by ILO for the main MENA region
countries. Our empirical findings reveal that the youth labor market of these
countries did not exhibit the same pattern of frictions. We find that Tunisian
youth is more affected by over education phenomenon which implies the analysis
of the return to education. More particularly, our findings show that concerning
Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, the marginal benefits that individuals expected to
obtain at university level are significant. However, the return to education,
especially for Tunisia, is largely attenuated when workers are overeducated.
These findings suggest that over education introduces a wage penalty, which is
more pronounced for Tunisian.