Who benefits from school-to-work linkages in the labour market? A comparison between natives, migrants educated abroad, and those educated domestically

Recent research suggests that people with more occupation-specific qualifications (i.e. qualifications that link to a smaller set of occupations) experience greater benefits in the labour market. Based on human capital, signalling and credentialing theory, we argue that these benefits may vary between the native majority population, individuals with a migration background who hold a foreign qualification, and individuals with a migration background with a domestic qualification. Using data from the German Microcensus, we find that for both the native majority and immigrants with a domestic qualification, holding a more occupation-specific qualification relates to a higher chance of working in a position the individual is educated for in terms of both level and field. Holding a more occupation-specific qualification also relates to higher labour market returns (i.e. income and occupational status) for those who work in a job for which they are educated, yet is mostly negatively related to the labour market returns for those who do not work in a job for which they are educated. Migrants with a foreign qualification profit less from holding occupation-specific qualifications and suffer more from their associated disadvantages.