Journal Article
Individual choice and risk: the case of higher education
Authors
Publication date
Apr 2013
Summary
The expansion of higher education raises the risk environment for school-leavers as more occupations become partially graduate with the result that occupational signals are fuzzy. This makes the educational decision more difficult and more risky, especially with more of the cost of higher education being transferred to the individual. After a discussion of the nature of risk, derived from Beck, and of the role of government policy and of economics in obscuring this, the analysis uses simple quantitative techniques, based on British Labour Force Survey data, to demonstrate the increased fuzziness of graduate work. It is also shown that a rising proportion of graduates receive only average pay, thus raising the risks associated with educational investments even further.
Published in
Sociology
Volume and page numbers
47 , 284 -300
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038512444814
ISSN
16
Subjects
Wages And Earnings and Higher Education
Links
http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1616621~S5
Notes
Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*; This research is available as an Economic and Social Research Council evidence briefing
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