Better-off abroad? The overqualification of Eastern migrants to Western Europe

The academic and institutional debate presents free movement within European Union (EU) as a chance for individuals to boost their own socio-economic status. However, migrants from ‘New’ Eastern European countries tend to perform low-qualified occupations in Western Europe. The present study aims to shed light on Eastern EU migrants’ overqualification, normatively defined as a mismatch between the highest educational title attained by an individual and the qualification level to entry his or her current job. A sample of employed graduates is selected from the EU Labour Force Survey for the period 2018–2019, preceding both Brexit and COVID-19. EU migrants, especially those in Southern Europe, emerge to be more exposed to overqualification than Western EU locals, Western EU migrants and, especially, Eastern EU locals who stayed in the origin country. Therefore, on the ground of overqualification, these findings contradict the general expectation according to which economic migrants are better-off abroad.