An article by Professor Emeritus Pepka Boyadjieva, DSc, and Associate Professor Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, PhD, from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, has been published in the prestigious Journal of Education and Work, a Q1 journal indexed in Scopus.
The article examines the relationship between different forms of mismatch between workers’ skills and education and the requirements of their jobs, as well as employees’ subjective well-being. It also explores how this relationship is influenced by individual socio-demographic characteristics. Drawing on the capability approach, the study moves beyond the widespread focus on the instrumental and economic consequences of mismatch between possessed and required skills. Instead, it highlights the importance of subjective well-being and intrinsic values for human flourishing and development.
Conceptually, the article treats subjective well-being at work as a multidimensional phenomenon. It encompasses aspects of employment related both to its instrumental benefits—such as income, working conditions, job security and work–life balance—and to its contribution to personal development, including interest in one’s work, opportunities for self-improvement and social relationships.
The empirical analysis is based on data from the second wave of CEDEFOP’s European Skills and Jobs Survey, conducted in 2021 across 27 countries. The authors develop a new index measuring the different dimensions of well-being at work.
The findings show that all the forms of mismatch examined affect workers’ subjective well-being. These include mismatches between an individual’s educational attainment and the level and field of education required for their job, as well as the extent to which their acquired knowledge and skills are used at work.
The study also reveals that individual characteristics moderate the effects of different types of mismatch on well-being in different ways. These differences should be taken into account both in future research and in the development of labour-market and education policies.
The article is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2026.2707463
The article was developed within the framework of the Skills2Capabilities project.