Uniform Inequalities: Institutional Differentiation and the Transition from Higher Education to Work in Post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe

Introduction

Education systems structure processes of educational attainment and labour market entry in complex ways. Comparative research has uncovered the central role education systems play in structuring the transition from secondary school work, emphasizing in particular differences in how vocational education is organized (Shavit and Müller, 2000; Breen, 2005; Scherer, 2005; Iannelli and Raffe, 2007; Wolbers, 2007). Recent studies have also explored the consequences of expansion and differentiation in tertiary education for inequalities in educational attainment and on labour markets (Van de Werfhorst, 2004; Leuze, 2007; Shavit, Arum and Gamoran, 2007; Ayalon et al., 2008; Gerber and Cheung, 2008; Giesecke and Schindler, 2008; Stevens, Armstrong and Arum, 2008; Barone and Ortiz, 2011). However, comparative research still diverges on the question of how to best conceptualize and measure institutional differentiation in tertiary education institutions.

Drawing on sociological research on the transition from secondary education to work (Müller and Shavit, 1998) and on the labour market effects of fields of study (Van de Werfhorst and Kraaykamp, 2001), this article reconsiders how institutional differentiation in higher education systems is linked to patterns of inequality in returns to education at the transition from higher education to work (Katz-Gerro and Yaish, 2003; Kim and Kim, 2003; Van de Werfhorst, 2004; Shwed and Shavit, 2006; Allen and van der Velden, 2007; Leuze, 2007; Giesecke and Schindler, 2008; Bukodi, 2010; Barone and Ortiz, 2011). We distinguish two institutional dimensions along which we classify higher education programmes: degree level or cumulative duration of studies (vertical differentiation) and occupational specificity (horizontal differentiation), i.e. the extent to which different fields of study are aligned to labour demand and the extent of organizational linkages between classrooms and workplaces. These dimensions capture institutional characteristics of higher education that structure the transition from higher education to work. While degree level is expected to mainly influence educational inequalities in occupational status attainment, occupational specificity should be primarily related to educational inequalities in labour market entry dynamics.

We illustrate our arguments with data from five post-socialist Central and Eastern European countries: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine. Despite profound differences under socialism and capitalism, these countries exhibit considerable similarities in broad patterns of differentiation in higher education.¹ Drawing on the concept of organizational isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; see also Schofer and Meyer, 2005), we argue that these higher education systems have converged on similar institutional models. These institutional similarities are expected to produce similar patterns of educational inequalities at the transition from higher education to work.

Institutional Differentiation within Higher Education Systems

Prior research on institutional differentiation within higher education has adopted a typological approach, classifying—at the country level—higher education systems in terms of different ideal types (Müller and Wolbers, 2003; Arum, Gamoran and Shavit, 2007; Leuze, 2007) or locating higher education systems on institutional dimensions that also vary at the country level (Van de Werfhorst, 2004). Leuze (2007) compares early labour market careers of higher education graduates in Germany and the United Kingdom, pointing that linkages between higher education and work are tighter in the occupationally specific German system compared to the United Kingdom.

In contrast to existing comparative studies, which focus on institutional variation in higher education systems at the country level, we measure institutional variation not at the macro-level, but within countries at the level of educational programmes (see also Van der Velden and Wolbers, 2007). Within countries, institutional differentiation occurs between different types of education programmes, in particular in terms of the level at which they are offered (vertical differentiation, Kim and Kim, 2003) and in terms of their occupational specificity (horizontal differentiation, Müller and Shavit 1998).

Vertical Differentiation: Degree Level

The most salient fault line differentiating tertiary degree programmes is the time required for completion, or the level (e.g. Bachelor versus Master) at which a degree is obtained. Longer duration of instructions should increase the amount of skills students acquire (Becker, 1964). More skills imply higher productivity, which translates into better labour market outcomes. At the tertiary level, these include general skills, like analytical, cultural, technical, and social skills (Van de Werfhorst, 2002; Autor, Levy and Murnane, 2003), but also specific skills that can only be acquired in certain fields of study. Moreover, since obtaining access to and completing a certain level of education requires ability and effort, graduates who enter and complete higher education programmes will be positively selected in terms of these traits. Mastering a certain degree level, for example Master rather than Bachelor, then also becomes a signal of ability and effort to prospective employers (Spence, 1973).

Many European countries have traditionally offered one-cycle degree programmes lasting 4–6 years and leading to a master-level degree (for example Diploma, Magister, etc.). In these countries, next to traditional research-oriented universities, second-tier vocational colleges offers shorter degree programmes, in which instruction is more strongly aligned to current labour market demand. Degrees from these colleges often lead to direct labour market entry. Level and duration differences are thus reinforced by institutional separation, different curricular orientation, and opportunities for further study (Müller and Wolbers, 2003: p. 32f.).

In the course of the Bologna reform process, countries increasingly converge on standardized organizational forms and practices in higher education. Following the model found in Anglo-Saxon countries (particularly the United Kingdom and the United States), tertiary education has increasingly acquired a sequential structure, starting with Bachelor (3 to 4 years), followed by Master (1 to 2 years) and PhD programmes (≥3 years) (Müller and Kogan, 2010). Completion of a degree at one level qualifies for entry into (highly) skilled occupations as well as entry into the next higher cycle of studies. The Bologna reforms have therefore introduced an additional dimension of stratification in countries with traditionally one-cycle degree structures.

Based on these considerations, we expect that vertical differences are decisive for shaping occupational status in the first significant job. Master-level programmes provide more skills than bachelor-level programmes, and their completion requires more ability and effort. We therefore expect master-level graduates to obtain the highest occupational status (Hypothesis 1). While achieving lower status than master-level graduates, bachelor-level graduates should still obtain clear status advantages relative to secondary graduates (Hypothesis 2). It is not immediately clear, though, whether master-level graduates will also enter the labour market significantly faster than bachelor-level graduates. While superior skill levels may result in more job opportunities (job offers), higher tertiary graduates may also search more selectively for high-quality jobs to guarantee a sufficient return on their educational investments. Following Cahuc and Zylberberg (2004: p. 161), we would expect that the former mechanism (more job offers) dominates the latter (more selective search). Hence, master-level graduates are expected to have the fastest labour market entries (Hypothesis 3).

Horizontal Differentiation: Occupational Specificity

Within levels, we can further distinguish programmes by the degree of occupational specificity (Shavit and Müller, 1998, 2000). We conceptualize occupational specificity here in terms of a continuum ranging from least occupation-specific, academic programmes to highly occupation-specific, professional programmes (Table 1). The more specific programmes are, the more aligned are educational contents with labour demand and the more organizational links exist between classrooms and workplaces. This alignment or coordination of educational content and employer demand is accomplished via market mechanisms or professional associations. The latter also establish organizational links between higher education and employers.

Academic, research-oriented programmes, such as natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, are focused on knowledge and analytical skills within certain fields of study and are typically offered in the university sector. Their prime organizational aim is to prepare for further studies (at the lower level) and for independent research (at the higher level). While much knowledge is specific to the discipline, these programmes foster the development of analytical and problem solving as well as cultural, technical, social, and communicative skills (Van de Werfhorst, 2002; Autor, Levy and Murnane, 2003), which are required in diverse high-status managerial, professional, research, and administrative positions. Students therefore acquire general labour market relevant skills throughout their studies. However, direct applicability of educational contents to concrete job tasks is not the organizational goal of these programmes. If graduates of ‘arts and sciences’ enter the labour market directly, they lack preparation for specific occupations.

In contrast to academic programmes, professional programmes are occupation specific, preparing students for employment in concrete occupations, like lawyer, teacher, physical therapist, or laboratory technician. Occupation-specific programmes provide students with general knowledge and analytical skills within a specific discipline, but there is a stronger emphasis on preparing students for working in a specific occupation, especially in the final years of instruction. The occupational orientation of the curriculum is reinforced through internships as well as mandatory on-the-job training, which is provided by potential future employers and which can be of considerable duration, for example, in medicine and law. Occupation-specific programmes at the lower level may be offered by vocational colleges or universities. At the higher level, they are usually offered by universities, sometimes within separate graduates schools (for education, medicine, law, theology, etc.).

A considerable number of vocational programmes at the tertiary level are professionalized, whereas their share has been shown to vary across countries and time (Abbott, 1988; Weeden, 2002; Leuze, 2007). Professional associations interact with education providers to early on socialize graduates into a profession, standardize educational contents, and examinations, as well as grant exclusive licenses for practice. Professional programmes, for instance law or medicine, involve extensive periods of practical training, either as part of the formal curriculum or immediately following graduation. Training is conducted at workplaces with formal or informal coordination or under the auspices of professional associations. Involvement of professional organizations, therefore, intensifies linkages between classrooms and workplaces, aligning educational contents with labour demand as well as by facilitating or administering extensive on-the-job training. We classify occupations in the fields of health, law, architecture, and teaching as highly occupation specific, professional programmes.

Between academic and professional programmes, we define applied programmes, under which we subsume business, computer science, engineering, agrarian sciences as well as different service occupations (personal, transport). Compared to academic programmes, applied programmes are characterized by a stronger alignment of educational contents to labour market demand, providing more skills that are of direct relevance to different occupations and industries. However, unlike professional programmes, they tend to lack the organizational influence of professional associations, mandatory periods of on-the-job training, as well as professional licensing. Instead, coordination, if it occurs, is more often informal or market based.

Table 1 illustrates how we operationalize the two institutional dimensions into different degree types. At the lower tertiary level (bachelor level), academic programmes are offered in the university sector. Applied programmes are offered by both vocational colleges, where they usually lead to direct labour market entry, and universities, where they qualify for further study. Lower level professional programmes are mainly offered by vocational colleges and are usually terminal education degrees, leading to entry into associate professional work.² At the higher level (master level), programmes are offered in the university sector or graduate professional schools. Regardless of their specialization, master-level graduates generally have access to higher level administrative, managerial, and research positions. Academic programmes are oriented towards preparing students for independent research within their field, even if many do not continue on this route. Applied and professional fields offer the dual option of research and labour market entry.

Occupational specificity should be associated with faster entries into first employment by facilitating the matching of graduates to jobs and aligning educational contents with employer skill demands. Occupational specificity implies that students acquire specific skills that match employers’ skill demands, and it reduces information problems that complicate the formation of job matches between graduates and employers (Mortensen and Pissarides, 1999). It improves employers’ knowledge of the skills that graduates have, which lowers their screening costs. Organizational links, for example, through longer internships, provide employers with low-cost screening opportunities that allow them to assess expected productivity of potential future employees on-the-job. Graduates’ information problems are also reduced, as they are already connected to potential future employers during their studies. We would therefore expect that graduates of the least occupation-specific, i.e. academic, programmes have the slowest labour market entries (Hypothesis 4). Conversely, graduates of professional programmes have the fastest transitions (Hypothesis 5).

Cross-National Homogeneity and the Returns to Tertiary Degrees

Research on the transition from secondary education to work has pointed to substantial variation across countries in how education systems structure this transition (Müller and Shavit, 1998; Scherer, 2005; Iannelli and Raffe, 2007). However, in case of the post-socialist CEE countries analysed here, we argue that cross-nationally similar economic and political factors have led to the convergence to similar patterns of institutional differentiation in higher education. These institutional similarities should result in uniform inequalities at the transition from higher education to work.

Different factors contribute to organizational isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) in higher education in CEE countries. Under socialism, a key factor enforcing homogeneity across countries and time was the existence of a socialist hegemon in form of the Soviet Union, which defined the authoritative socialist model for the education system across the Eastern Bloc. From an economic perspective, similar economic needs for specialists in research, administration and other fields may have also contributed to similar institutional structures. Networks and exchange among academics may have also played a crucial role in disseminating institutional knowledge about best-practice models across countries (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Schofer and Meyer, 2005).

These forces have led to similar patterns of expansion and differentiation in higher education. Across the former Eastern Bloc, enrolment in higher education grew strongly in the 1960s, but stagnated or even diminished in the 1970s and 1980s (Reisz and Stock, 2006). In terms of institutional differentiation, traditional research/teaching universities as well as technical institutes prevailed on top of the status hierarchy. Alongside a diversified post-secondary/lower tertiary sector emerged, where workers could obtain occupation-specific credentials for lower service class, associate professional and skilled white collar work.

In the course of the transformation to capitalism, the tertiary sector again began to expand rapidly across CEE countries. While educational institutions were freed from socialist state control, reform and expansion have been constrained by the pre-existing institutional setup (Müller and Wolbers, 2003). Universities expanded through the integration of mono-technical institutions into multi-faculty universities as well as the (re-)integration of research institutes that had once been managed by Academies of Science or central ministries under socialism (Scott, 2002). Expansion also occurred through the growth of non-university, second-tier institutions, like vocational colleges and shorter post-secondary vocational schools (Kogan, 2008). In the decade following the Bologna declaration, the five countries studied here started the Bologna reform process, which has lead to further formal convergence in the structure of study programmes, educational pathways, and diplomas (Müller and Kogan, 2010).

In summary, the organization of higher education exhibits striking isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) across CEE countries. Broadly, similar distinctions and divisions of labour exist between high-status institutions, especially universities, and second-tier, vocationally oriented institutions, as well as between academically oriented and occupation-specific programmes. Of course, national idiosyncrasies remain and institutions of the same type may differ considerably in terms of resources, selectivity, and prestige. However, we do not see any profound, historically grown institutional differences in the organization of tertiary education across CEE countries that should translate into fundamentally different transitions from higher education to work. Therefore, we expect that the mechanisms described in this and the preceding section lead to cross-nationally similar patterns of labour market inequalities among higher education graduates (Hypothesis 6).

Data, Methods, and Variables

We draw on analyses performed in the context of the international research project ‘Education Systems and Labour Markets in Central and Eastern European countries’ (Kogan, Noelke and Gebel, 2011). Scholars from different CEE countries contributed country studies on the school-to-work transition using nationally representative data and following a common theoretical and methodological framework. The following results are based on a detailed re-analysis of the data from five post-socialist Central and Eastern European societies. We use retrospective school leaver surveys from Croatia, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine, and a Czech retrospective life history study that provided detailed longitudinal information on the transition from school to work, educational attainment and social background (see Supplementary Table A1 for more information on data sets). Data comparability and quality have been assured by coordinated and careful data selection and data harmonization procedures (see Kogan, Noelke and Gebel, 2011 for further details).

Our analysis covers cohorts entering the labour market in the early 2000s, after the turbulent years of system transformation have passed. To make the samples from different countries and surveys more comparable, we analyse cohorts entering the labour market between 2000 and 2008 and imposed a common age range, 15–34 years, for respondents in most countries.³ Following now common definitions (Kogan and Müller, 2003; Scherer, 2005), the period of labour market entry is defined as the time between leaving the educational system and finding a first stable working position. In all countries except the Czech Republic, the first significant job position for school leavers is defined as jobs that last at least 6 months and include a minimum of 20 h of work per week excluding any forms of military service, and casual jobs.⁴ The advantage of using the first significant job instead of any first job is that we exclude short employment spells that often characterize periods of working while in school or early career instability, making it more likely that we capture the first meaningful employment relationship. We restrict the sample to respondents who leave school for at least one year for the first time and treat those who combined school and work as still being in education (Scherer, 2005).

We measure graduates’ labour market integration in terms of the entry speed and occupational status of first employment. The time elapsed until first significant employment is analysed with continuous time piece-wise constant exponential models in a multivariate context. Their basic concept is the hazard rate, which describes the instantaneous rate at which the population of school leavers makes the transition to the first significant job.⁵ Following common practice, graduates, who obtain work prior to or directly after graduation, are counted as having a zero search period. To measure respondents’ occupational status in their first significant job, we use Ganzeboom, de Graaf and Treiman's (1992) Standard International Socio-Economic Index (ISEI) as a continuous measure of occupational attainment that is comparable across countries. We use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to analyse this dependent variable.

The central independent variable is the tertiary degree attained at the point of labour market entry. If information was available, we assigned dropouts to the level of education they completed. Following our operationalization outlined in Table 1, we differentiate between three main degree types: at the lower tertiary level university bachelor and vocational college degrees, and at the higher tertiary level, university master degrees. Using detailed field of study information, we separate university bachelor graduates into those completing either academic or applied/professional courses. Graduates of vocational colleges are divided into those completing either applied or professional courses. Master-level graduates are separated into those completing either academic, or applied, or professional courses.

To assess empirically whether our field of study classification discriminates between programmes in terms of their occupational specificity, we have calculated cross-nationally comparable indicators of different dimensions of occupational specificity for the three programmes, we distinguish (Table 2). The analyses are based on individual data from the REFLEX and HEGESCO surveys. Academic programmes are least, while professional programmes are most vocationally oriented, with applied programmes falling somewhere in between. The same pattern is observed for employer familiarity with curricular contents. Internships are most prevalent among professional programmes, and the ranking of programmes is consistent with our arguments at least among Western European countries. Among Eastern European countries, internships seem to be more frequent in academic compared to applied programmes. These results point to consistent differences in terms of occupational specificity across the fields that we combine in our classification.

All analyses are performed separately for each country. Upper secondary graduates who are eligible for entering tertiary education, but have not completed a tertiary degree, serve as the reference group. By analysing relative labour market outcomes within one country, we hold constant unobserved, country-specific factors that equally affect all tertiary graduates. We estimate two model specifications. In the first (Model 1), we regress the dependent variable on dummy variables for having a bachelor, vocational college, or master degree. Model 2 further differentiates the educational degree by fields of study: bachelor academic, bachelor applied/professional, vocational college applied, vocational college professional, master academic, master applied, and master professional.

To account for differences in the composition of different groups of tertiary graduates, all specifications control for parental highest education, parental highest occupation status, minority status, gender, and a full set of gender interactions. Specification checks (results available on request) show that our findings are insensitive to alternative covariate specifications. Nevertheless, unobserved factors like ability or effort could bias our estimates. We expect the bias to be less severe in our case, since we limit the analyses to a rather homogenous sample of upper secondary and tertiary graduates at the beginning of their working career and since we use a flexible specification of control variables.⁶ Furthermore, we cannot conclusively rule out the possibility of unobserved confounders at the macro level. However, since we estimate country-specific models and focus on the interpretation of relative effects, we implicitly condition on unobserved factors that cause average outcome levels to differ for our samples across countries.

Empirical Results

Higher Education Landscape in Five CEE Countries

We begin with a detailed look at the degree of educational expansion and differentiation in five Central and Eastern European countries. Table 3 shows the overall share of labour market entrants (as defined above) with tertiary degrees as well as their distribution across levels and fields. In the early 2000s, the Czech Republic is characterized by a relatively small tertiary sector, which might be related to the strong degree of stratification in secondary education.

The relative shares of vocational college graduates among tertiary graduates vary from 14 per cent (Poland) to 32 per cent (Serbia). In the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine, the Bachelor–Master structure has already been implemented for the cohorts we observe. The relative shares of bachelor graduates are relatively similar, ranging from 13 per cent (Ukraine) to 19 per cent (Poland). There is not much variation either in the relative shares of master and diploma graduates, which range from 63 per cent (Czech Republic) to 72 per cent (Croatia).

Regarding the distribution of graduates across fields of study, we also observe more similarities than differences. Between 27 per cent (Poland) and 33 per cent (Czech Republic) of graduates obtain degrees in professional fields, whereas 46 per cent (Czech Republic) to 54 per cent (Ukraine) obtain degrees in applied fields. The relative share of degrees in academic fields, which are nearly exclusively offered by universities, is smallest, ranging from 19 per cent (Ukraine) to 25 per cent (Serbia). Altogether, despite substantial differences in economic and political development, and despite considerable differences in the absolute size of tertiary sectors, the countries considered here appear rather similar in their distribution of students across different fields of study as well as in the relative shares of different types of degrees.

The Returns to Higher Education Degrees in Cross-National Perspective

How do different groups of tertiary graduates fare at the transition from higher education to work? The upper panel (Model 1) of Table 4 indicates that there are clear differences between tertiary graduates in terms of their early labour market outcomes. Master-level graduates obtain high status premia compared to secondary graduates, ranging from 17 (Poland) to 23 (Ukraine) points on the ISEI scale, which supports Hypothesis 1. Bachelor and vocational college graduates obtain significantly lower status than master-level graduates, but still enjoy considerably higher occupational status in their first job than secondary graduates. This supports Hypothesis 2. Degree level (or cumulative duration of studies) is therefore an important determinant of occupational status in respondents’ first significant job.⁷ Furthermore, the similar ranking of educational degrees in terms of occupational status across countries can be taken as evidence in support of Hypothesis 6 claiming that institutional similarities in the five Central and Eastern European countries produced fundamentally similar patterns of inequality in returns to education at the transition from higher education to work.⁸

In Ukraine and Poland, university bachelor degrees are associated with significantly higher occupational status compared to vocational degrees, whereas this pattern is reversed in the Czech Republic. Employers may not yet be familiar with the (at the time of observation) only recently introduced bachelor degrees in the Czech Republic, a country with a traditionally small and selective higher education system, and therefore place bachelor graduates into lower status positions, possibly for screening or training purposes.

Further differentiating the results by fields of study (Model 2), we see that among master-level graduates, the classical professions obtain the highest status premia, varying between 19 (Poland) and 31 (Serbia) points on the ISEI scale. There are no significant advantages of professionals in the Czech Republic compared to master-level graduates from applied fields. Master graduates from academic fields attain rather similar occupational positions compared to those graduating in applied fields. If there are significant differences, they point towards status advantages of graduates from academic fields. At the lower tertiary level, no consistent patterns of status differences can be discerned.

Considering the dynamics of the transition from higher education to work, educational inequalities are less pronounced. Results in the upper panel (Model 1) of Table 5 suggest that graduating from university does not lead to a significantly faster job entry in the Czech Republic and Croatia compared to lower tertiary graduates. In Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine, however, master graduates enter the labour market significantly faster than graduates from vocational colleges and university bachelor programmes.⁹ The latter results deliver partial support for Hypothesis 3. In Poland and Ukraine, vocational college graduates enter the first significant job slower than university bachelor graduates (effects not statistically significant). Their lower occupational status is thus not compensated by faster transition rates. Bachelor graduates in the Czech Republic enter the labour market significantly slower than vocational college graduates, which further indicates that bachelor degrees were (not yet) valued by Czech employers at the time of observation.

Further differentiating by field of study provides additional evidence of considerable heterogeneities between fields. Among graduates with the same degree, we tend to observe the slowest transitions among graduates from academic programmes. This is true in case of bachelor graduates, as well as master graduates in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine. Graduates from professional fields have relatively fast entries, particularly in case of vocational college graduates in the Czech Republic and Ukraine. However, these patterns do not appear consistently across countries and some coefficients do not differ significantly from each other. We therefore find only partial support for Hypotheses 4 and 5.

Conclusions

This study conducts a comparative analysis of institutional differentiation in higher education and the transition from higher education to work in five post-socialist CEE countries: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine. We argue that within countries, institutional differentiation can be measured by two dimensions: degree level or cumulative duration of studies (vertical differentiation) and degree of occupational specificity (horizontal differentiation). The latter dimension has proven important in explaining variation in labour market entry patterns of secondary graduates across advanced countries (Müller and Shavit, 1998). However, unlike comparative studies focusing on institutional variation in secondary education, we could not find evidence of pronounced differences in occupational specificity at the tertiary level across countries studied here. Instead, we observed similar patterns of institutional differentiation within higher education systems across countries. Drawing on longitudinal data covering the period 2000–2008, we analysed the early labour market returns to different tertiary degrees in terms of the speed of entry into the first significant job and the first job's occupational status in five post-socialist CEE countries.

First, our results indicate that degree level appears to be a central dimension of stratification in tertiary education. This applies especially to the process of occupational status attainment where university master graduates reach by far the highest occupational positions, followed by university bachelor, and vocational college. However, this hierarchy is less pronounced with respect to the speed of labour market entry. Nevertheless, university master degree holders enter the labour market significantly faster than (or equally fast compared to) graduates from vocational colleges and university bachelor programmes.

Secondly, the degree of occupational specificity has less clear-cut effects. There is evidence suggesting that in some countries vocational colleges, despite being considerably less selective in terms of student composition, enter the labour market as fast as master-level graduates. Similarly, we found some effects of fields of study that are consistent with our expectation of slower labour entries of graduates from more academic fields. While the degree-level effects on occupational status attainment followed a similar pattern across countries, the relationship between occupational specificity and the speed of labour market entry appears more complex, and we only found partial support for our hypotheses.

Thirdly, we find remarkable cross-national similarities in terms of occupational status returns to tertiary degrees. Patterns of inequality in status returns to education are rather similar across countries. Regarding the speed of labour market entry, we could discern some country differences, which might partly be driven by demand-side, institutional or compositional factors that we did not account for.

Our results de-emphasize the importance of variation in the organization of higher education across countries as a predictor of cross-national variation in transition patterns from higher education to work, at least for the sample of countries studied. Even though these countries differ considerably in terms of their political regimes, welfare states, transformation pathways, and education systems at the secondary level (Noelke and Müller, 2011), we were unable to identify substantial variation in higher education institutions that could be predictive of differing patterns of tertiary graduates’ labour market entry.

It remains a task for future research to further assess the validity of the institutional dimensions distinguished here. It would be desirable to have more detailed secondary data on the characteristics of different fields and professions (e.g.Weeden, 2002; Van der Velden and Wolbers, 2007) in order to draw more convincing inferences about the structuring effects of different organizational contexts. Case studies that exploit institutional variation over time in a given country should be very helpful to illustrate and find stronger and more direct evidence in support of the specific mechanisms discussed here. More generally, it still remains an important task to find robust evidence in support of institutional differentiation generating systematic differences in the transition from higher education to work (Gerber and Cheung, 2008). Finally, extending the analysis to a broader set of countries might reveal that the pattern of cross-national similarity that we found here is specific to post-socialist CEE countries, or that it may apply more generally across advanced economies.

Funding

This research has been supported by the Volkswagen Foundation under the project ‘Education systems and labour markets in Central and Eastern Europe’.

Acknowledgements

This article was prepared within the framework of the Volkswagen project ‘Education systems and Labour Markets in Central and Eastern Europe’ headed by Irena Kogan and Walter Müller at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MEZS), University of Mannheim. The project was financed by the Volkswagen Foundation, whose support we gratefully acknowledge. We would like to thank the following researchers for providing us with results of empirical analyses and/or data: Anna Baranowska (Poland), Teo Matković (Croatia), Martin Zelenka, Jan Koucký, and Jan Kovařovic (Czech Republic). We would also like to thank the European Training Foundation (ETF) for providing data of the Youth Transitions Surveys of Serbia and Ukraine.

References