Occupational Credentials Research Articles

Certifiably employable? Occupational regulation and unemployment duration

AbstractOccupational regulation is a labor market institution that has received a growing amount of attention. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the relationship between occupational credentials and unemployment duration in the United States. Thus, we propose a random search model to explain differences in unemployment duration resulting from heterogeneous effects from licenses and certification. Our model predicts that an occupational credential with a stronger signaling/human capital effect results in a shorter individual unemployment duration. To estimate the relationship between occupational credentials and spells of unemployment, we perform a survival analysis using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for the years 2013–2019. We find that both licensing and certification are associated with reductions in unemployment spells for Black males that are similar in magnitude. Our results provide some suggestive guidance to policymakers since certification is less costly and not mandatory like occupational licensing.

Toward capabilities for adult working learners in Canada and the United States

AbstractThis article focuses on adult working learners who attend postsecondary institutions in Canada and the United States. We identify how these institutions deliver curriculum and instruction in the form of career‐technical education (CTE) and vocational education offering occupational credentials. In British Columbia and the U.S., most vocational programming culminates in the associate degree whereas the rest of Canada commonly confers diplomas as well as associate degrees. Other postsecondary credentials, including certifications and licensure, are integrated within programs in both countries. This chapter analyzes policies, programs, and practices for adult working learners in the two countries and provides perspectives on how a focus on the capabilities of adult working learners is beneficial to the needs of the individual, communities, and society as a whole.

Demographic Covariates, Vocational Rehabilitation Services, and Employment Outcomes of Working-Age Adults with Anxiety Disorders: A Multivariate Logistic Regression Analysis.

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the relationships between demographic covariates, vocational rehabilitation (VR) services, and employment outcomes of individuals with anxiety disorders. The specific research question for the current study investigate demographic variables and vocational rehabilitation services as predictors of competitive employment outcomes.MethodsData for the present study were extracted from the most recent United States Rehabilitation Service Administration 2018 Case Service Report (RSA-911) data. A purposeful selection, multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the case service report data of 9266 individuals with anxiety disorders who received vocational rehabilitation services based on their demographic variables and receipt of VR services.ResultsThe results indicated that African Americans and Latinx, people who have completed high school or more, people who do not receive disability-related benefits, and those who received more vocational rehabilitation services were more likely to be gainfully employed. In addition, receipt of financial support for life crises and occupational credentials (i.e., other services and maintenance services) and vocational rehabilitation counseling and guidance services were significant predictors of employment outcomes. Conversely, receipt of supported employment and transition services were negatively associated with employment outcome.ConclusionsIn the present study, we identified VR services that can improve and risk factors that can impede employment outcomes of people with anxiety disorders. We also identified medical, psychosocial, and vocational interventions that can lessen the effect of anxiety disorders on physical and mental health functioning.

Exploring the Experiences of Highly Skilled Immigrants in Career and Technical Education

ABSTRACT Immigrants are more likely to arrive in the United States with lower levels of education, resulting in lower-status jobs, leading to lower incomes and less accumulation of wealth. However, a segment of the immigrant population enters the United States with the expectation of contributing immediately and directly to the country’s economic advancement: the highly skilled immigrant. Unfortunately, many cannot gain recognition for their foreign academic or occupational credentials while in the United States. For many, career and technical education, or vocational programs, have been helpful. Utilizing the acculturation framework, this study explores the experiences of ten highly skilled immigrants with credentials from their home countries who could not gain recognition for their credentials in the United States. This study further examines the motivations that led them to enroll in career and technical education programs in the United States. The findings from this study presented the themes of (1) Inability to continue in the previous career, (2) High cost of graduate degrees in the United States, (3) Difficulties in transferring foreign credentials, (4) Immediate employment opportunities after career and technical education program completion and (5) Age/Adult learner.

Beyond traditional academic degrees: The labor market returns to occupational credentials in the United States

Abstract Occupational credentials provide an additional—and, at times, alternative—path other than traditional academic degrees for individuals to increase productivity and demonstrate their abilities and qualifications to employers. In the United States, these credentials typically take the form of licenses and certifications. Although a critical part of the workforce landscape, the literature on the returns to credentials is inadequate, with prior research typically relying on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions which do not sufficiently control for selection. Using questions that identify credential receipt from the 2015 and 2016 United States’ Current Population Surveys, we construct an instrumental variable of local peer influence using the within-labor market credential rate of individuals sharing the same sociodemographic characteristics, while controlling for the same group's average wages and a suite of demographic and geographic controls. We use this instrument in a marginal treatment effects estimator, which allows for estimation of the average treatment effect and determines the direction of selection, and we estimate the effects of credentials on labor market outcomes. We find large, meaningful returns in the form of increased probability of individual employment, an effect which is concentrated primarily among women. The effect of having a credential on log wages is higher for those in the sub-baccalaureate labor market, suggesting the potential role of occupational credentials as an alternative path to marketable human capital and a signal of skills in the absence of a bachelor's degree.

Occupational Credentials and Job Qualities of Direct Care Workers: Implications for Labor Shortages.

Occupational training and credentialing requirements for direct care workers were in place for consumers’ health and safety, but their effects on job qualities and labor shortages in the direct care industry have been controversial. Using a nationally representative sample of psychiatric, nursing, and home health aides, a series of Average Treatment Effect models were analyzed to examine the effects of occupational credentials on various measures of job qualities. The findings revealed that credential-holding was related to higher annual earnings and increased probability of working full-time, year-round, and having access to employer-provided health insurance and retirement savings plans. The positive effects, however, were modest in size and suggested that, given the current wage and benefit levels for direct care workers, training and credential requirements cannot be the key to resolving job quality and labor shortage issues in the direct care industry. Implications of these findings and alternative ways to address the issues were discussed.

Occupational Credentials for Jobs in the Subbaccalaureate Economy: The Case of the Emerging Energy Sector in Ohio

Using data on a mid-sized community college in northeast Ohio as a case study, we examine patterns of enrollment in petroleum technology credential programs and labor market returns to those credentials. The enrollment analysis yields mixed results. Strong industry conditions represented by an increase in oil prices is associated with a decline in program enrollment; however, higher wages for petroleum workers is associated with increased program enrollment. Earning analyses were unambiguous: Obtaining a certificate or an associate’s degree was associated with outsized quarterly earnings returns of $2,900 and $5,500, respectively. This study suggests that partnerships that align subbaccalaureate postsecondary education to the needs of local labor markets may result in occupational credentials with substantially larger returns than those observed in the literature.

Gender and Educational Variations in the Earnings Premiums of Occupational Credentials

Abstract Occupational credentials such as professional licenses and certifications are known to generate significant earnings premiums. Based on this, the federal workforce development policy focuses on industry-recognized occupational credentials for less-educated adults to help them obtain family-supporting jobs without having to invest in a postsecondary degree. This study used data from the 2016–2019 Current Population Survey (CPS) outgoing rotation group samples to examine differences in the earnings premiums associated with occupational credentials by gender and education. Our analyses revealed that the earnings premium of job-required credential holding was greater for women than men. For women, estimates of the earnings premiums do not vary much by education level, while for men, those without a Bachelor's degree tend to have high premiums than those without.

The (Mis)match Between Sub‐Baccalaureate Credentials and Middle‐Skill Jobs: A Community College Spatial Research Agenda

AbstractThis chapter urges researchers to use a “spatial lens” to identify mismatches between educational offerings and the local labor market for middle‐skill careers. Students who are unlikely to relocate for a job will benefit from occupational credentials aligned with geographically local and available careers. The proposed spatial research agenda offers examples of how institutional researchers may explore the link between education, employment, and place to improve outcomes for community college students.

Occupational licenses and labor market outcomes in Japan

This study, using original survey data, documents the relationship between occupational licenses and labor market outcomes in Japan. The novelty of this study is that it distinguishes between the possession and actual use of occupational credentials, as well as between stringent licenses and lenient certifications. Occupational licenses and certifications have a large presence in the Japanese labor market. The possession of occupational credentials, particularly licenses, has positive associations with the labor market attachment and wages of individuals. On the other hand, the occupational licensing system might negatively affect market efficiency through the creation of monopoly rents.

Who is Less Welcome?: The Impact of Individuating Cues on Attitudes towards Immigrants

Based on a novel experimental design, the current study examines the impact of economic and cultural characteristics of potential immigrants on anti-immigrant sentiments. We investigate the extent to which individuating cues affect public support for individual immigrants in the USA and the Netherlands through a series of online survey experiments carried out by the YouGov online panel in 2010 and the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences Panel in 2011. Our findings demonstrate that individual immigrants elicit different levels of public support for their temporary and permanent immigration applications, and that support depends overwhelmingly on educational and occupational credentials of potential immigrants. Other individual attributes, such as presence of family dependents, country of origin and skin complexion also affect acceptance rates, but to a much lesser extent.

Variation in job opportunities for men and women in the Swiss labor market 1962–1989

For the period of the 1960s to the late 1980s, this paper examines variation in job opportunities for men and women in the occupationally segmented and highly gender-segregated Swiss labor market. Job opportunities are defined as the volume of job openings potentially accessible to individuals with given skills and other desired characteristics. They are conceptualized within the queuing approach, taking into account the structure and cyclical fluctuations of the Swiss labor market. Theoretical arguments about employers’ criteria for ranking workers are abundant. However, the testing of the corresponding hypotheses has often been hampered due to the difficulty of measuring individual job opportunities empirically. This paper attempts to advance this research field by proposing an individual-level and time-dependent measurement of job opportunities based on annual occupation-level job-advertisement data. It yields an indicator of the volume of job opportunities accessible to workers with given occupation-specific credentials and other job-relevant characteristics (i.e., gender, age, work experience). Based on separate regression analyses for men and women, job opportunities for salient groups of labor-market participants and their ranking within the labor queues are assessed. The findings, which differ markedly by gender, show that macro-level processes, such as the economic cycle, play an important role for men's job opportunities in particular. Furthermore, job opportunities strongly depend on occupational credentials whereas educational attainment plays a minor part. Age and cohort effects are found mainly for women. These findings imply that in occupationally segmented and sex-segregated labor markets occupational credentials and sex serve as employers’ primary ranking criteria.

The East German Labour Market after German Unification: A Study of Structural Change and Occupational Matching

This article investigates the restructuring process of the East German employment system after German unification. It raises the question of whether and how job mobility has contributed to coping with rapid change in the occupational structure. In particular, it explores the importance of occupational credentials in these mobility processes in East Germany. The empirical analysis is based on retrospective life histories of East German men and women belonging to three birth cohorts (1939-41, 1951-3 and 1959-61). The main result is that vocational certificates have driven occupational matching in East Germany after 1989. Thus, change in the employment structure was achieved by `credentialised' exclusion and inclusion processes and, moreover, the efficacy of occupational credentials even increased after 1989. Beyond the East German case, the paper provides interesting insights in the social value of occupational credentials and the relationship between labour market regulation and social change.

Social status and the health of families: A model

The aim of this study is to examine the association of family health and social status, taking the family as the unit of analysis. One particular dimension of social status, lifestyle incongruity, is examined as a predictor of family health, relative to other stressors and sociodemographic variables. Lifestyle incongruity refers to the degree to which style of life (measured by the accumulation of consumer goods and the adoption of specific leisure activities) exceeds economic status (as assessed by occupational class and educational credentials). Using the 1980 General Household Survey of the United Kingdom, it was found that lifestyle incongruity discriminated between households with and without chronically ill members, and was associated with a global rating of family health, controlling for a variety of factors. The logic of studying the health of families, and the implications of these results for future research are discussed.

Career Processes in Great Britain and the United States

Previous research suggests that British and American systems of social mobility are organized around different traditions and principles that produce similar mobility outcomes. In this paper we explore the implications of Turner's distinction between and educational systems for the process of occupational career mobility in Great Britain and the United States. We use data on matched labor market cohorts from the Occupational Changes in a Generation Survey II and the Oxford Social Mobility Study to examine the linkage between the system and the occupational structure in the two countries, as well as the role of further education in the career process of British men. The results indicate that despite substantial differences in the way in which and occupational credentials are obtained, the degree of openness in the two societies is about the same when one looks at occupational status ten and twenty years after labor force entry. We find, however, a notable degree of difference between the two societies in the process of career mobility. The results suggest that sponsored and contest are oversimplified labels for the differences in the career processes of British and American

A Developmental Program in the Black Community

In the last ten years there has been a preponderance of programs intended to change the life styles of the so-called disadvantaged groups. Most of these programs have been federally funded and as such should have had national impact. Although several such projects have demonstrated relative success, many have been victims of misconceptions regarding procedures for alleviating the effects of racial prejudice. This article attempts to show the difference between what was planned and what happened in a program that ended successfully. Fortunately, modifications in the plan were implemented early enough to insure some success. In a Southern city a federally funded summer program was established to develop a sense of awareness, organization and application to the environment for seventhand eighth-grade black students from a lower income neighborhood. Staff included a school-community coordinator (white minister), and three occupational therapy graduate students (two black men and one white woman) who conducted the program. A consultant with occupational therapy credentials was involved in planning and implementation of the project. Goals and progression as articulated and implemented, utilizing an occupational therapy frame of reference, were: