HSE study: those who work outside their specialty receive less than 14% of their salary

Approximately 33% of Russians with higher education work outside their specialty, follows from articles economists from the Labor Market Research Laboratory and the HSE Institute for Institutional Studies. According to them, the salary of such employees would be 7-14% higher if they worked in their specialty.

It follows from the survey that those who work almost in their specialty receive 7% less salaries, 11% less – those who work rather outside their specialty, 14.4% less – people with a complete mismatch of specialty.

A low mismatch of the specialty was found among people who studied medicine, natural sciences, exact sciences, IT and pedagogy at universities. A high discrepancy is among those who have received education in the service sector and agriculture.

“This partly confirms the assumption that those who receive more specific knowledge and skills that are in demand in only one area are more strongly attached to their specialty, and this is most clearly manifested in medicine. Those who receive more general, universal skills, it is easier to change the field of activity. In addition, people in whose (by education) area incomes are on average low are more likely to change professions. Interestingly, women are more likely to work in their specialty than men,” the article says.

The results of the Rosstat survey from 2016 were used for the study. The survey includes data from over 10,000 university graduates on education and work, and socio-demographic characteristics.

According to Rosstat on the socio-economic situation in Russia for the period January-June 2022, the real wages of Russians in May decreased by 6.1% year-on-year, in June – by 3.2%.

Polina Sobakina