Graduate employment: Does the type of higher education institution matter?

Abstract

The paper analyses whether the type of institution from which students graduate has an impact on their unemployment propensity. It uses official data on the Portuguese higher education system, for 2018, at the program/institution level, which provides information on graduate unemployment, as well as demographic and socioeconomic background information. A fractional probit model on graduates’ propensity for unemployment is estimated. Results suggest that polytechnic graduates face higher unemployment propensity than university graduates, maintaining inequalities present in students’ previous trajectories. Policies targeting socioeconomic segregation need to address not only access to higher education but also the transition to the labor market. © 2023 Trustees of the Bulletin of Economic Research and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Vocational education Higher education unemployment Universities binary systems polytechnics

Index Keywords

Employment higher education Vocational education university sector labor market educational attainment unemployment socioeconomic conditions

Author Affiliations

Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, Centro de Investigação de Políticas do Ensino Superior, Portugal, Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal

Centro de Investigação de Políticas do Ensino Superior, Portugal, Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Braga, Portugal

Management and Information Technologies, Universidade Portucalense Infante D.Henrique, Porto, Portugal

Centro de Investigação de Políticas do Ensino Superior, Portugal, Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal

Funding & Acknowledgements

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT

Grant: UIDB/00757/2020, UIDB/03182/2020

This work benefited from the funding of (i) the FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project UIDB/00757/2020; (ii) the FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project UIDB/03182/2020; and (iii) Edulog, Fundação Belmiro de Azevedo.

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT

This work benefited from the funding of (i) the FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project UIDB/00757/2020; (ii) the FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project UIDB/03182/2020; and (iii) Edulog, Fundação Belmiro de Azevedo.

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Graduate employment: Does the type of higher education institution matter?

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