Participation, equality of opportunity and returns to tertiary education in contemporary Europe

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to investigate the consequences of the expansion of higher education on two goals of the education system, namely promoting equity of educational opportunities and providing credentials that facilitate the matching of labour supply and demand. The first goal is typically studied by research on inequality of educational opportunity; the second by research on returns to education and credential inflation. The key idea of the paper is that educational expansion can have different and possibly opposite effects on the two goals. (a) If, with educational expansion, equality of educational opportunities increases, while the occupational value of the titles decreases, one has a trade-off scenario. For example, an increase in equality of educational opportunities is matched by a decline in the value of higher education in the labour market. (b) If equality of opportunities does not increase, despite the expansion of higher education, and the returns of higher education degrees decline, one has then a worst-off scenario. (c) Finally, if with educational expansion equality of opportunities increases and there is no credential inflation, one has a best-off scenario. In this paper, we systematically investigate these alternative scenarios. We perform the same empirical analysis on two distinct data sets in order to test the robustness of our findings. We use micro data from EU-SILC 2005 and from the five merged waves of the European Social Survey (2002Á2010), covering 23 countries.

Economic and Non-economic Returns to Higher Education during a Period of Educational Expansion in the Czech Republic

“…Jako reakce na tuto situaci vznikají dvě sociologické teorie -teorie inflace vzdělání a teorie technologické změny [k oběma přístu-pům srov. Bernardi, Ballarino 2014].…”

“…Investují-li tedy vlády národních států do expanze vyšších vzdělanostních stupňů, investují nejen do vyšší kvality života populace, ale také ovlivňují obsazování pozic na trhu práce [Bernardi, Ballarino 2014]. Otázkou pak je, jak se mění role vzdělání v získávání zaměstnání neboli jak vzdělání funguje při obsazování pozic na trhu práce.…”

Education as the great equalizer: a theoretical framework

“…To be noted is that the mechanisms described by the SBTC and IEC hypotheses can both be active at the same time (Goldin and Katz 2008;Bernardi and Ballarino 2014). In this regard, it seems important to distinguish between absolute and relative returns to education.…”

Comparison of the effect of social background on the wages of Spanish graduates before and during a crisis context

“…There is also evidence that educational expansion helped to reduce inequality in educational attainment by social origins (Bernardi & Abade, 2017;Fernández Mellizo-Soto & Martínez-García, 2016;Fachelli & Planas, 2016;Carabaña & de la Fuente, 2015;Carabaña, 2013, Maqués Perales & Gil_Hernández, 2015Bernardi & Ballarino, 2014;Ballarino et al, 2009;Bernardi & Requena, 2010).…”