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In higher education dual systems, graduates are qualified to apply for jobs in same professional fields along two separated educational routes. The research problem is whether the rival applicants for professional positions are treated equally in the labour market despite their different qualifications. From the graduates point of view, to be equal means to have an opportunity to be employed in accordance with one's professional skill. Applying European survey data, the article tests to what extent the "distribution of work" between university and non-university graduates seems to be based on educational qualifications or actual competence. Among 4,000 German, Dutch, Finnish, and Swiss graduates primarily in business and administration and engineering, only slight and occasional evidence of "status-based recruitment" was found. All in all, the research suggests that from the view of graduate employment, the European dual HE systems work very much following the principle of "different but equal".

Examines the educational system in Nordic countries as it regulates passage of age cohorts from home through school to the labor market. States that formal education is failing to close the skills gap. Advocates delinking vocational training from formal schooling and reorganizing working life in terms of production of practical know-how through workplace learning. (SK)

Analyzes the changing links between higher education and the labor market, including conceptions of higher education's capacity to reduce social inequities and channel graduates into more prestigious forms of employment. Suggests that in general, higher education does not reduce inequities but may reinforce them, and it no longer guarantees more prestigious employment. However, it provides some social insurance. (Author/MSE)

This article proposes that efforts to coordinate higher education and employment of graduates depends on both the educational structure of the population and the structure of employment opportunities, making comparison across countries difficult. The situation in Europe, and particularly in Finland in relation to other countries, is examined. Attention is also given to public versus private employment. (MSE)

Defines, from a sociological perspective, adult education connected to the education and labor markets. Emphasizes the matter of how adult education functions as a regulating system in social stratification, ensuring and regulating the value and status of educational merit given in childhood and adolescence. (Author/JOW)

In accordance with the education policy which puts human capital at its heart, higher education is expected to produce marketable competent professionals in response to the needs of an expansive knowledge-based economy. In one reading, to support competitive knowledge-based economy, higher education students should graduate as young and fast as possible. The article asks whether it is credible that the young & fast principle as an objective for university education would provide a feasible way of enhancing professional labour force to serve knowledge economies. The analysis of study careers of 17,000 European second cycle university graduates shows that transitions from school to higher education to professional employment vary considerably in the 12 countries. The key finding is that countries with rather slow progression in the initial part of the transition tend to do better in the end, and vice versa. Belgium (Flanders) is the most obvious example of young and fast-graduating students that need a relatively long period after graduation to start their professional careers. In Finland, Austria, and Norway, relatively old and experienced graduates are employed rapidly. The time before professional employment after graduation is short for students who have acquired relevant work experience and acquainted themselves with professional fields. The youngest professionals are found in France where they tend to have access to opportunities for professionally relevant training. However, professional employment cannot be fostered by simply trying to recruit student populations as young as possible, but rather by enriching the labour market relevance of their student careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In higher education dual systems, graduates are qualified to apply for jobs in same professional fields along two separated educational routes. The research problem is whether the rival applicants for professional positions are treated equally in the labour market despite their different qualifications. From the graduates point of view, to be equal means to have an opportunity to be employed in accordance with one’s professional skill. Applying European survey data, the article tests to what extent the ‘distribution of work’ between university and non-university graduates seems to be based on educational qualifications or actual competence. Among 4,000 German, Dutch, Finnish, and Swiss graduates primarily in business and administration and engineering, only slight and occasional evidence of ‘status-based recruitment’ was found. All in all, the research suggests that from the view of graduate employment, the European dual HE systems work very much following the principle of ‘different but equal’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the mechanisms of a state-organized educational system as it functions between households and the labour market, regulating the passage of age cohorts from the home via school to the labour market. One question is what outcomes the educational system actually produces and what mechanisms are at work in the distribution of educational advantage. In terms of disadvantage, the paper assesses solutions for overcoming the skill gap and entrapment problems of post-industrial society by means of education. In addition to describing how the educational system worked in the conditions of a mature Nordic welfare state and an industrial society based on paid work, feasible ways of reorganizing education in the changing work conditions of an increasingly crisis-ridden post-industrial society are also sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]