Overqualification as Misrecognition

This paper examines overqualification through the lens of recognition by confronting two notions of praiseworthy achievement. The de facto model in contemporary labor markets understands achievement in instrumental, competitive, and individual terms. A broader model—underpinning workers’ demands for recognition—treats qualifications themselves as standalone achievements. The experience of overqualification as misrecognition arises from the large and growing investments individuals make in education and training, encouraged and regulated by social institutions. The paper concludes that a structural mismatch exists between the recognition workers demand and what the system can provide: the system is unable to generate sufficient social esteem to proportionally recognize the capacities it prompts workers to develop.