Abstract
Over the course of higher education expansion and growing numbers of graduates, employers are supposed to have increasing difficulties to regard a higher education degree as reliable signal for productivity. As a consequence, they may take into account ‘qualitative’ differences such as graduates’ field of study more often than in previous times when hiring labour market entrants. Both from a supply- and demand-side perspective graduates from humanities, social services or arts may be increasingly disadvantaged in terms of labour market outcomes compared to graduates from science, technology, engineering and mathematics over time. The article tests this argumentation by assessing changes in the relationship between graduates’ field of study and risk of unemployment as well as access to the service class in West Germany between 1980 and 2008. Changes in returns to field of study may contribute to growing (social) inequalities among graduates amidst educational expansion and are therefore important to consider. Based on Microcensus data, the results show that field of study differences in terms of both labour market outcomes did not increasingly diverge over time. The paper concludes that due to a limited educational expansion and the prevalence of an occupationally segmented labour market higher education remains a good investment in terms of labour market returns in West Germany irrespective of graduates’ field of study.
Highlights
The literature on social stratification increasingly paid attention to the impact of horizontal differentiations in postsecondary education on occupational attainment or earnings
During educational expansion children from higher social background may increasingly feel the need to differentiate themselves from children from lower social background by choosing more frequently fields of study that involve higher rewards in the labour market. If these rewarding fields become more beneficial in terms of labour market outcomes over time compared to less rewarding fields, this development contributes to a widening socio-economic gap among graduates
This article contributes to the literature by assessing changes in the relationship between graduates’ field of study and labour market outcomes over time in West Germany
Summary
The literature on social stratification increasingly paid attention to the impact of horizontal differentiations in postsecondary education on occupational attainment or earnings (for an overview see Gerber and Cheung 2008). During educational expansion children from higher social background may increasingly feel the need to differentiate themselves from children from lower social background by choosing more frequently fields of study that involve higher rewards in the labour market (see “effectively maintained inequality” hypothesis, Lucas 2001) If these rewarding fields become more beneficial in terms of labour market outcomes over time compared to less rewarding fields, this development contributes to a widening socio-economic gap among graduates. This article contributes to the literature by assessing changes in the relationship between graduates’ field of study and labour market outcomes (risk of unemployment, access to service class positions) over time in West Germany.
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