Insecurity and intense competition for permanent academic positions appear to be common experiences for early career researchers across the globe. With academic precarity now firmly on the international research and policy agenda, this article looks comparatively at postdoc precarity in three European countries: Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. It…

Higher education institutions are increasingly expected to demonstrate the relevance of the education provided and establish tighter links with the labour market. The introduction of learning outcomes represents one such development. The article examines the extent to which various intermediary organisations are involved in decisions about…

Governments recognise that careers guidance, underpinned by accurate labour market information, can help learners make post-secondary education choices that match their interests, aptitudes and abilities, and lead to rewarding employment. For this reason, they have invested in building linked education/employment information systems and other…

This publication is the sixth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). Based on analysis of developments over the past two decades (1995-2015), the report provides important insights into developments and change processes related to vocationally oriented education and training at higher…

This paper examines the effects of grades from higher education on labour market outcomes. Economic theory predicts that grades are rewarded in the labour market because employers regard them as an expression of valuable skills or a signal of other sought after attributes. Social closure, however, may give reason to expect no effects. Whether good…

Comparative studies of vocational education and training systems rarely conduct systematic comparisons of the content of educational programmes, partly because of methodological difficulties. Yet, comparing the organisation of curricula can increase our understanding of how programme design reflects orientation towards various life chances in…

This research paper is one in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of how CVET is conceptualised in various international level policy documents and how it is referred to across countries. It discusses national conceptions of CVET, the…

Rapid growth of tertiary education is partly due to the expansion of post-secondary vocational education and training (PSV). A well developed post-secondary PSV system and links between universities and VET institutions improve skills and employment opportunities. What is post-secondary PSV and how does it relate to other components of the…

This study examines the relevance of doctoral training (thesis, coursework and generic skills) for a career in three types of labour market: academia, applied research institutes and industrial laboratories, and non-research workplaces. Data are drawn from a mail survey among PhD holders in Norway. In total, more than 40% of the respondents had…

In this paper, a comparison is made of the background and the early career of graduates with higher education from abroad to graduates with all domestic degrees, based on a survey among Norwegian graduates. Results show that those who have studied abroad constitute a selected group regarding social origin and mobility capital (exposure to…

One of the aims of the implementation of a two-tier degree system was that the new Bachelor's degree should serve two functions: as a basis for further studies (Master's level), and at the same time to qualify for the labour market. This twofold function may be present to a different degree in various countries, but was an explicit policy…

This paper explores whether polytechnic and university graduates are affected in the same way by gender differences in the graduate labour market in four countries: the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Switzerland. Using data from the Research into Employment and Professional Flexibility (REFLEX) graduate survey, the analysis is based on…

This article studies the impact of parental education on the education-to-work transition among graduates in Norway during the time period 1987-2001. Four indicators of labour market success are examined: (1) main activity after graduation, (2) mismatch in the labour market, (3) type of job position, and (4) monetary outcome. The findings indicate…

This article considers the problem of vocationalism in Norwegian higher education at the institutional and individual level and uses case studies of curriculum changes at the University of Oslo to examine the university's relationship to the labor market, effects of externally funded research, and academization of the labor market. (DB)

The aim of this article is to analyse the transferability of higher education undertaken abroad to a domestic labour market. More specifically, how do Norwegians who have undertaken their education abroad cope on the labour market compared to those who have a corresponding education from Norway? To examine this, we analyse short-term labour market…