Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CAREER (From School to Career: Towards A Career Perspective on the Labor Market Returns to Education)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-02-01 al 2022-07-31
Over the last decades European labor markets have changed rapidly. Wage inequality has increased in virtually all western societies, for a large part between educational groups. Technological change, globalisation, and the automatization of job tasks have changed labor markets: occupations for middle-educated workers are disappearing, while employment at the top and bottom is growing. These changes present societies with a challenge: how should they educate a workforce that is well-prepared for the labor market of the future? Is it still sensible to equip students with a narrow set of occupation-specific skills, given that what is demanded in the labor market is under rapid change? In this project we will investigate how careers of workers with different educational degrees are affected by the changing labor market. By extending the observation window from the early to the full career, CAREER shows how workers with specific or general qualifications perform in rapidly changing labor markets. This will not only enrich our understanding of the link between education and the labor market, it will also inform policy makers on a future-proof education system.
*Setting up theoretical framework // PI
*Hiring researchers for project // PI
*Study on job mobility in Germany (SOEP-data) //PI, PhD1
*Cleaning SOEP data // PhD1
*Analyzing SOEP data on job mobility //PI, PhD1
*Cleaning/working with the vacancy data in the UK/Netherlands // PI, PD
*Presentation of project in research seminar //PI, PD, PhD1, Phd2
*Developing interview guide // PI, PhD2
*Pilot interviews // PhD2
*Recruiter interviews // PhD2
*Preliminary output of the research project is accepted or planned at ECSR Conference (July 2022), Dag van de Sociologie (June 2022), RC28 (April 2022), Bourdieu Conference (September 2022)
The project is in the first phase, which is also indicated by the steps that have been taken. The first steps have been mostly to set up the theoretical
*Hiring researchers for project // PI
*Study on job mobility in Germany (SOEP-data) //PI, PhD1
*Cleaning SOEP data // PhD1
*Analyzing SOEP data on job mobility //PI, PhD1
*Cleaning/working with the vacancy data in the UK/Netherlands // PI, PD
*Presentation of project in research seminar //PI, PD, PhD1, Phd2
*Developing interview guide // PI, PhD2
*Pilot interviews // PhD2
*Recruiter interviews // PhD2
*Preliminary output of the research project is accepted or planned at ECSR Conference (July 2022), Dag van de Sociologie (June 2022), RC28 (April 2022), Bourdieu Conference (September 2022)
The project is in the first phase, which is also indicated by the steps that have been taken. The first steps have been mostly to set up the theoretical
The results from CAREER will result in two doctoral theses, several articles in top-tier international journals, an international conference, and a monograph on how changing labor markets affect career opportunities of workers with different educational qualifications. Beyond these outcomes, CAREER aims to have a lasting impact on the field of sociology and social stratification by pioneering the use of big data and computational methods to describe labor markets. All novel data that are gathered will be shared with the academic community in scientific use files via DANS and the Harvard Dataverse. We aim to do this too for the vacancy data, but this depends on the willingness and legal possibilities of the data proprietors. Finally, all the replication files of the project will be shared via the Open Science Framework. Academic dissemination is also achieved via participation in international conferences. Results from the project will be presented at the meetings of the RC28 on Social Stratification and Mobility, European Consortium for Sociological Research (ECSR), American Sociological Association (ASA), the Population Association of America (PAA), and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE). Besides academic dissemination the research team will actively involve policymakers, stakeholders, and the public too. The PI has ample experience with this: he has written several policy papers and op-eds, and about his recent research he has been interviewed by international and national leading journals and media such as Nature and Science.
//Specific output
SP1 will deliver three academic articles: (1) how did the demand change differently for vocational and general graduates across countries (using repeated cross-sectional data), (2) a methodological article on using online vacancy texts to measure shifts in demand within- and between occupation for a sociological audience (comparing repeated cross-sectional and vacancy data), and (3) a paper on (cross-national differences in) the within-occupation changes in demand (vacancy data). Moreover, the data collection in SP1 will form the basis of a monograph on changing labor markets and the effects for workers with different educational backgrounds. The unique cross-national vacancy data will form an important pillar of the book.
SP2 will deliver three academic articles: (1) effects of changing labor markets on vocational and general graduates’ labor market outcomes, (2) effects of within-occupation change in skill demands on vocational and general graduates’ labor market outcomes, and (3) cross-national differences in the effects of changing labor markets on labor market outcomes.
SP3 will deliver three academic articles in the form of a PhD dissertation: (1) career effects of vocational and general education across six European countries, (2) the importance of labor market mobility for understanding vocational career effects, and (3) early career setbacks and long-term effects.
SP4 will deliver three academic articles in the form of a PhD dissertation: (1) Mechanisms for late-career penalty (interviews, factorial experiment), (2) Relative importance of mechanisms (factorial experiment), (3) Organizational and recruiter predictors (factorial experiment, recruiter survey).
//Specific output
SP1 will deliver three academic articles: (1) how did the demand change differently for vocational and general graduates across countries (using repeated cross-sectional data), (2) a methodological article on using online vacancy texts to measure shifts in demand within- and between occupation for a sociological audience (comparing repeated cross-sectional and vacancy data), and (3) a paper on (cross-national differences in) the within-occupation changes in demand (vacancy data). Moreover, the data collection in SP1 will form the basis of a monograph on changing labor markets and the effects for workers with different educational backgrounds. The unique cross-national vacancy data will form an important pillar of the book.
SP2 will deliver three academic articles: (1) effects of changing labor markets on vocational and general graduates’ labor market outcomes, (2) effects of within-occupation change in skill demands on vocational and general graduates’ labor market outcomes, and (3) cross-national differences in the effects of changing labor markets on labor market outcomes.
SP3 will deliver three academic articles in the form of a PhD dissertation: (1) career effects of vocational and general education across six European countries, (2) the importance of labor market mobility for understanding vocational career effects, and (3) early career setbacks and long-term effects.
SP4 will deliver three academic articles in the form of a PhD dissertation: (1) Mechanisms for late-career penalty (interviews, factorial experiment), (2) Relative importance of mechanisms (factorial experiment), (3) Organizational and recruiter predictors (factorial experiment, recruiter survey).