Health-related outcomes of educational mismatch: evidence from the Russian Federation

This PhD Dissertation aims at contributing to the existing literature on health outcomes of educational mismatch and contains a set of studies which raise the question whether different types of educational mismatch affect objective and subjective measures of health and adverse health behaviors represented by drinking habits. The analysis is applied to the context a LMIC country - the Russian Federation - and conducted on the basis of the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE). The first Chapter of this Dissertation investigates the impact of the vertical type of educational mismatch – overeducation and undereducation - on hypertension and self-reported health of the Russian labour force. The second Chapter considers the impact of overeducation and undereducation on the physical and psychological components of general health, proxied by pain and anxiety (EQ-5D metrics) and the health-related reporting styles of the Russian employees. Finally, the third Chapter investigates the impact of different types of educational mismatch - overeducation, undereducation and horizontal (field-of-study) mismatch - on alcohol use and alcohol consumption in Russia, along with defining potential channels for transmission of this effect by means of conducting a mediator analysis. Overall, the results of the studies included in this Dissertation provide evidence that educational mismatch affects the health outcomes, health-related reporting styles and drinking behaviors of the Russian employees. However, the direction and the magnitude of these effects are gender-specific and vary with the types of educational mismatch considered.