Educated workers do not experience shorter unemployment spells: evidence from a literature review

Abstract The common intuition is that unemployment duration is shorter for workers with higher education. However, there is no theoretical support for this intuition, and empirically, there is no systematic review of the findings to date. We conducted a literature review of empirical articles that report findings on the association between the duration of unemployment and education level. 103 papers that reported a quantitative and empirical association were included in the review, and the results show that only 30% of those articles support the common intuition. Furthermore, 26% of the articles support the counterintuitive association: that unemployment duration is longer for workers with higher education. The analysis concludes, therefore, that the common intuition is not supported by the empirical literature. While the meta-analysis shows that the intuitive association is even less likely to be found in developing countries, which authors relate to waiting unemployment and overeducation, many channels are discussed in the literature, suggesting that the association is complex and far from the simple common intuition.