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This paper examines the factors that may have impact on the extent to which the knowledge and skills of master's degree graduates in Norway are utilised at work, three years after graduation. The focus is on the impact of the quality of the study programme as well as the graduates' fields of study, when also taking into account other factors influencing the utilisation of skills. The analysis indicates that the quality of the study programme has an independent effect on skills utilisation at work. The analysis also shows large differences in skills utilisation according to fields of study, even among graduates who are not formally overeducated for their job. Not formally overeducated graduates in humanities and social science utilise their knowledge and skills less frequently than other similar graduates. The findings involve challenges for higher education institutions and graduates, as well as employers, to find ways that the expertise of master's degree graduates could be better exploited.

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This chapter is part of a book based on the findings of a comparative study of the relationship between higher education and employment three to four years after graduation. The Career after Higher Education: a European Research Study (CHEERS) questioned graduates in 11 European countries and Japan about their socio-biographic background, course of study, transition to employment, current employment situation, competences and job requirements, job satisfaction, and regional and international mobility. This chapter provides a description of the major activities of graduates in the CHEERS countries during the first three or four years after graduation. The authors analyse how differences in labour force status and type of employment contract are related to individual characteristics or to country differences. Finally, the robustness of the labour market situation one year after graduation as a predictor of the labour market position four years after graduation is considered.

An overview of the findings are presented in the companion volume, indexed at TD/TNC 98.494. Selected chapters from this volume are indexed from TD/TNC 98.496 to TD/TNC 98.500 and from TD/TNC 98.551 to TD/TNC 98.559. Show less