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Basic skills in literacy and numeracy are essential for success in the labor market. Even in OECD countries, where an increasing proportion of the workforce has a university degree, the value of basic skills in literacy and numeracy remains high. Indeed, in some countries the return for such skills, in the form of higher wages, is sufficiently large to suggest that they are in high demand and that there is a relative scarcity. Policy makers need robust evidence in order to devise interventions that genuinely improve basic skills, not just of new school leavers entering the market, but also of the existing workforce. This would lead to significant improvements in the population that achieves a minimum level of literacy and numeracy.

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Education is often regarded as a route to social mobility. For this to be the case, however, the link between family background and adult outcomes must be broken (or at least reduced) once account is taken of an individual's education history. This paper focuses on individuals who have completed university and provides new evidence on differences in graduates' earnings by socioeconomic background, with a particular focus on whether they attended a private school. [The authors] use data on the population of individuals graduating from UK universities in 2006-07 and find that those who attended private schools earn around seven per cent more per year, on average, than state school students some 3.5 years after graduation, even when comparing otherwise similar graduates and allowing for differences in degree subject, university attended and degree classification. This work complements Macmillan et al. (2013), who found that graduates from private schools were more likely to enter 'high status' occupations. However, [the authors'] results show that earnings differences persist even within occupations, with graduates who attended private schools earning six per cent more than their state school compatriots working in the same occupations. This is equivalent to around £1,500 extra per year in [the authors'] data. Together, these results suggest that there is a pressing need to understand why private schooling confers such an advantage in the labour market, even amongst similarly achieving graduates, and why higher education does not appear to be the leveller it was hoped to be.

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Skills for Business (SfB), the UK-wide network of employer-led Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), supported and directed by the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA), was launched in October 2002. The purpose of SfB is to bring employers more centre-stage in articulating their skill needs and delivering skills-based productivity improvements that can enhance UK competitiveness and the effectiveness of public services. This research was commissioned for the SfB network by the SSDA. It presents the first systematic evaluation of the variation in the distribution of, and returns to, qualifications using sectors defined by the newly established network of 25 SSCs. The research is intended to contribute to the skill needs assessments undertaken by each SSC in particular as part of their Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs).

This report presents an analysis of the distribution of rates of return to academic and vocational qualifications in the SSCs. More specifically, it utilises data drawn from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for 2000 to 2004 (inclusive) and presents estimates of the proportion of the workforce in each SSC holding qualifications as defined by the five levels of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). It differentiates between academic and vocational qualifications, and presents separate figures for men and women. This first stage of the analysis provides an indication of the utilisation of differently qualified workers in each sector. It then calculates the average wage premiums, or 'rates of return', which accrue to each of the qualification levels. This provides an estimate of the value placed by employers in different sectors on each type of qualification. This report therefore provides a sector-based analysis of the supply of and demand for different types of qualifications.

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We present a method to compare different qualifications for entry to higher education by studying students' subsequent performance. Using this method for students holding either the International Baccalaureate (IB) or A-levels gaining their degrees in 2010, we estimate an 'empirical' equivalence scale between IB grade points and UCAS points whereby, for similar students in the same universities and subjects, final degree performance is independent of the type of entry qualification. The empirical equivalence scale suggests that the official UCAS tariff is too generous to IB students in the allocation of UCAS points. We also compare the points of IB students with the UCAS scores of A level students in the same university. We find that the amount that the official tariff is adjusted by universities is approximately correct in the low-to-middle part of the range (IB points in the low 30s). At the top end of the scale, however, universities have adjusted too far away from the official mapping. Oxford and Cambridge are exceptions, owing to their intensive recruitment methods; yet their tendency to ask for very high IB points, but not very high A level UCAS points, remains a puzzle.

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The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Cabinet Office. This research was commissioned to explore the family background of UK graduates in high status occupations and look at whether the transitions made by new graduates as they leave university differ by social background. A better understanding of these early transitions may help understand when the socioeconomic inequalities in top professions begin and whether this is due to differences in the career trajectories of graduates from different social backgrounds.

For the purpose of this report, a high status occupation is defined as those in Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2000) Group 1 and 2, however the report focuses on access to the very high status occupations (SOC Group 1) which include higher managerial occupations. The report uses data on first degree graduates leaving higher education in 2006/7 who have been surveyed at six months and three years after graduation. The data are from the Higher Education Statistics Agency Longitudinal Destination of Leavers from Higher Education and includes students graduating from Scottish, English and Welsh institutions. The measures of a student’s socioeconomic background used in the report are: the highest earning parent’s most recent occupation on the student’s entry to university as measured by the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC); a proxy measure of socioeconomic disadvantage, namely whether or not the student lived in an area with low higher education participation when they applied to go to university; and whether or not they attended a state school just prior to going to university.

Focusing just on the six months immediately after graduation, there is no evidence that socioeconomic status is playing an independent role in helping graduates secure access to the highest status occupations straight after graduation. That said, those who attended private school do have a better chance of entering these occupations, even compared to individuals from state schools with similar characteristics and similar levels of education achievement. Three years after graduation, the situation is different. More socioeconomically advantaged graduates are more likely to be in the highest status occupations. This is particularly so for males. It also remains the case that those who attended state schools are less likely to access the highest status occupations.

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In this paper, [the authors] consider whether certain countries are particularly adept (or particularly poor) at getting children from disadvantaged homes to study for a bachelor's degree. A series of university access models are estimated for four English-speaking countries (England, Canada, Australia and the USA), which include controls for comparable measures of academic achievement at age 15. [The authors'] results suggest that socioeconomic differences in university access are more pronounced in England and Canada than Australia and the USA and that cross-national variation in the socioeconomic gap remains even once differences in academic achievement [are taken account of]. [The authors] discuss the implications of [their] findings for the creation of more socially mobile societies.

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This publication examines evidence on the value of greater investment in education. Focusing on the educational system in the UK and drawing on large-scale data sources on individual students and schools, the publication provides an up-to-date study of educational policy and its impact on educational attainment. It addresses issues such as the significance of teaching in student performance, the payoff for individuals from acquiring more education upon entering the labour market, and the effectiveness of education systems in providing employers with the skills they want. The book concludes with some policy recommendations and an evaluation of approaches to improving educational attainment. The recommendations cover school effectiveness, education financing, individual investment in education, government education initiatives, higher education, labour market benefits, and lifelong learning. The book is structured in four parts: Introduction; Who gets more education?; Economic outcomes and education; What can policy do? The chapters are: The United Kingdom education system in a comparative context / Kirstine Hansen and Anna Vignoles (p. 13-35); School and teacher effectiveness / Arnaud Chevalier, Peter Dolton and Ros Levacic (p. 39-55); The labour market for teachers / Arnaud Chevalier and Peter Dolton (p. 57-69); Post-compulsory education and qualification attainment / Damon Clark, Gavan Conlon and Fernando Galindo-Rueda (p. 71-97); Educational inequality and intergenerational mobility / Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin (p. 99-114); Measuring the returns to education / Richard Blundell, Lorraine Dearden and Barbara Sianesi (p. 117-145); Employers' selection decisions: the role of qualifications and tests / Andrew Jenkins and Alison Wolf (p. 147-168); Evidence on the balance of supply and demand for qualified workers / Steven McIntosh (p. 169-187); Economic evaluation of education initiatives / Carl Emmerson, Sandra McNally and Costas Meghir (p. 191-215); Education policy and the evidence / Stephen Machin and Anna Vignoles (p. 217-226).

Selected chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 83.70 to TD/TNC 83.72. Show less

In this paper, [the authors] consider research on links between higher education and family background, focusing particularly on the experiences of two cohorts of individuals born in 1958 and 1970. The findings point to a rise in educational inequality during the period relevant to these two cohorts. Specifically, links between educational achievement and parental income/social class strengthened during this period. Furthermore, a person’s actual (measured) ability became a poorer predictor of whether they would get a degree than was previously the case. The expansion of higher education in the UK during this period appears to have disproportionately benefited children from richer families rather than the most able. Furthermore, the labour market success or failure of individuals became more closely connected to their parents’ income, revealing a fall in the extent of intergenerational mobility over time.

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There is particular policy interest in the extent to which education and training can affect the length of time take by young people to find a job and the quality of the job that the person can secure. We analyze the time taken by Spanish graduates from the different vocational tracks available to find a job and also estimate the wage differential earned by young people graduating from these different vocational tracks. To do this we use various quantitative models and make use of the first survey specifically designed to conduct this type of analysis (ETEFIL, 2005).

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Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio-economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle-income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following cohorts of young people from age 5 to 22 in four country settings: Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and India. We reveal wide variability in higher education participation between the four countries, with a common pattern of a very strong association between early learning and later higher education participation, even after allowing for a range of demographic characteristics. Whilst early learning is important in predicting later higher education participation, we also find that significant barriers to higher education participation remain for low socio-economic status groups, even if they initially show good levels of learning. We track the trajectories of children who have initial good levels of learning, and hence arguably the potential to progress to higher education, and assess the extent to which socio-economic background plays a mediating role in these trajectories.

Pupils with initially good levels of learning at primary school age, but who are from poor backgrounds, fall back in terms of their relative attainment during secondary schooling years. This implies that socio-economic status continues to be a barrier to educational attainment throughout these children's lives. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy initiatives aimed at narrowing inequalities in higher education access in poorer countries.

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