Individual choice and risk: the case of higher education

Publication type

Journal Article

Author

Publication date

April 15, 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

Volume: 47 , p.284 -300

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038512444814

ISSN

380385

Subjects

Notes

Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*

This research is available as an Economic and Social Research Council evidence briefing

#521167

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