In the 21st century there is a lot of attention on sustainability (whether social or environmental). However, unfortunately, the economic perspective has been largely neglected in the field of education. This article deals with a quantitative assessment of the efficiency of tertiary education in individual EU countries, which allows to include the…

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…

Using a matching framework and high-quality administrative longitudinal and survey data, we evaluate the effectiveness of a second-chance education opportunity scheme, the Back to Education Allowance (BTEA), in assisting jobseekers to find employment on completion of their course. The results from two separate datasets indicate that BTEA scheme…

Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium…

Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium…

Purpose: There is currently a shortage of applications for the role of principal. There are a range of factors contributing to this, one of which may be the considerable levels of stress and burnout reported by principals and deputy principals. Distributed leadership may offer some solutions to this challenge. This study aimed to explore the lived…

Despite the potential for mutual learning, improvement of service provision, and the advancement of policy, research on first-generation migrant students and research on international students have remained stubbornly separate. This paper makes the case that education research would benefit from leveraging data on international students and that…

Utilizing the Survey of Adult Skills from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the OECD database, this study investigates the role of gender inequality and public social spending in the gender gap in Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET) risk across various age cohorts. The research identifies a…

This study investigates how different forms of social capital and job searching methods influence the incidence of overeducation among international students upon graduation in Ireland. While most studies have concentrated primarily on human capital factors in explaining overeducation among immigrant workers, this study emphasises the effect of…

This paper presents one of the first cross-nationally comparative studies on the economic and social returns to grit (perseverance and passion for long-term goals). Specifically, we investigated whether grit incrementally predicted objective (income) and subjective (job satisfaction) career success over and above cognitive skills and educational…

This article explores cross-country patterns in how conditions relating to family background, education, and the labor market are related to literacy and numeracy skills. It seeks to assess whether these patterns are in agreement with models of skills formation as identified in the political economy literature. The novelty of this article resides…

This study explores the role of the welfare state in reducing young people not being in education, employment, or training (NEET)s across 15 European countries. Using data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in combination with the Social Expenditure Database, we conducted…

One of the important roles of HE institutions is to train graduates who will smoothly enter the labour market. The literature review demonstrates that one effective method to facilitate this transition is to ensure students acquire professional experience. The aim was to establish the scale and characteristics of employers' demand for work…

In this ever-changing world, particularly in attempting to overcome the challenges around COVID-19, the need to support the upskilling of all people in Northern Ireland has never been greater. The pandemic has led to significant rises in unemployment. These rises have been limited by the furlough scheme, but significant numbers of people were…

Much research on adults in higher education has focused on issues of access and participation. As a result little is known about what happens to working-class students after leaving university even though employability is high on the agenda HE research on this topic in relation to such students is sparse. This research focuses on the voices of…