The Role of Social Capital in Avoiding Over-education

In post-socialist countries, overqualification is a current and relevant issue, butdespite its importance, this topic is not sufficiently addressed in the literature,especially in the post-communist region. Starting from the theory of professionalreorientation strategies, one can assume that the lack of social capital may be one ofthe causes of overqualification. In this study, I will investigate this hypothesis. Theanalysis of the issue was performed on the database of the “MOZAIK 2001”sociological survey. The long period of time that has lapsed since the collection of thedata requires the verification of the assumptions on a much more recent database,namely the Cultural Consumption Barometer 2010. In order to identify the necessaryworkplace educational training, I used the occupation classification method.Overqualification was determined by comparing the educational training acquiredwith the occupation performed. Although the importance of relational resources on thelabour market is discussed in several studies in the field, the research was only partlyable to prove the positive role of social capital in avoiding overqualification.