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An IERI – International Educational Research Institute Journal

Table 6 Dependent variable and independent variables

From: Do immigrants experience labor market mismatch? New evidence from the US PIAAC

Variable name in analysis

PIAAC variable

Method of construction

Over-education/under education/correct match

ISCO3C (Occupational classification of the respondent’s current job at the 3-digit level); EDCAT8 (Highest level of formal education obtained)

We constructed this variable from two PIAAC variables. We first identified a modal education level for each occupation category, and designated individuals in that occupation category who were below the modal level as under- educated, those who were above—as over-educated, and individuals whose education level was the same as the modal—as correctly matched

Immigrant status

IMPAR and J_Q04a

We constructed this variable from the information derived from two PIAAC variables—parents’ place of birth and own place of birth First generation immigrants are the ones who were born outside the U.S. to foreign-born parents. Second generation workers are these respondents who were born in the U.S. to at least one parent who was born outside of the U.S. Third-plus generation respondents are these who were born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents

Work experience

C_Q09

No transformation required, already derived

Part-time

  

Numeracy

A set of plausible values, PVNUM1-PVNUM10

No transformations necessary, apply plausible value procedures in all estimations

Gender

GENDER_R

Indicator variable to denote female and male respondents

Race

RACETHN_5CAT

The race variable in PIAAC is recoded into a series of five indicator variables: Hispanic, White, Black, Asian, and Other

Children

J_Q03b_C

Recoded as 1 if a respondent reported having at least one child

U.S. region

REGION_US

A set of indicator variables representing four regions—Northeast, Midwest, South, and West

City

URBAN_4CAT

Urban area is coded as 1, other categories as 0

Ability to speak English

J_Q05cUSX3b

Recoded into three groups: very well, well, not well (this group includes these respondents who reported not well and not well at all because their individual shares in total were small)

Years in a country

IMYRS_C

Recoded into a series of indicator variables as follows: less than 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 15 years, more than 15 years Second and third-plus generation are coded as 0