Introduction to the special issue on ‘European higher education graduates – acquisition,formation,and suitability of skills’

We live through an era of major societal challenges. Climate change urges for an energy transition and a sustainable way of producing and consuming goods. Geopolitical changes create instability and challenge political and economic relations. Demographic developments, such as an ageing population, mass immigration, declining populations in rural, and growing populations in urban regions pose risks to labour and housing markets. Moreover, digitations, robotisation, and artificial intelligence disrupt workplaces and challenge social security systems.

All these developments have major economic implications, such as sectoral shifts and changes in how organizations and workplaces are structured, which in turn leads to a changing demand for skills on the labour market (e.g. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014; Frey and Osborne, 2016;Acemoglu and Autor, 2011; Goos et al., 2014). Moreover, they affect how society is organized with major implications for social and civic participation.

Policymakers are increasingly aware of the importance of anticipating human capital demands on the labour market to foster innovation and economic growth. This is among other things reflected in European Commission’s initiatives such as the ‘New Skills Agenda for Europe’ (European Commission, 2016). These initiatives stress that education and Higher Education in particular play a crucial role in handling recent challenges. The acquisition of skills is among the most important functions of education, especially of Higher Education. Higher Education graduates are not only expected to acquire the relevant skills for future work but also to take responsibility for a well-functioning society. However, it is unclear to what extent Higher Education meets these expectations adequately, and if so, whether this differs across European countries.

Although empirical evidence is available for some countries, a comprehensive and comparative view of all European countries is lacking. This is mainly because large international data sources, such as the EU Labour Force Survey, the CEDEFOP Skills Survey, the OECD Survey of Adult Skills PIAAC, the European Social Survey, or the European Values Study cover the entire adult population rather than recent Higher Education graduates. Yet, the burden to tackle the pressing challenges and meet the needs of the future of work lies on the shoulders of these young people.

In the last two decades, several initiatives have been taken to develop international surveys specifically targeted at Higher Education students (Eurostudent, 2019) and recent cohorts of graduates (i.e. Eurograduate and its predecessors Cheers, Reflex, and Hegesco; Teichler and Schomburg, 2006; Allen and Van der Velden, 2011; Allen et al., 2011; Meng et al., 2020; Mühleck et al., 2020). These international surveys also prompted several national initiatives to further develop and enhance their data collection.

The data sets offer a unique opportunity to obtain insights from a wide range of countries and the specific institutional arrangements that frame the role of Higher Education graduates on the labour market and in society at large. In-depth information on the types of skills that are acquired during studies and on the mismatch between these acquired and the required types and levels of skills allow for addressing novel research questions. Moreover, the surveys provide information on less researched countries – for some countries these surveys are the first collection of data among recent cohorts of graduates – and enable direct comparisons between Higher Education graduates across European countries.

In the Special Issue on ‘European Higher Education Graduates – Acquisition, Formation, and Suitability of Skills’ we want to highlight the multifaceted character of skills acquisition, skills utilisation, and skills outcomes. We link an international – in particular European – perspective on skills with a specific focus on Higher Education graduates. Beyond that, we provide room for less researched European countries with the aim to gain a more complete picture of skills in the wider European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

The seven studies that comprise the Special Issue in ‘Research in Comparative and International Education’ address in particular four aspects of skills: (1) the conditions and contexts of skill acquisition, (2) the wider consequences of skill utilisation (3) skill mismatch, and (4) and the measurement of skills and skills mismatch.

1. In the first paper Talieh Sadeghi, Jannecke Wiers-Jenssen, and Mikkel Magnus Thørrisen investigate the interplay between personality dimensions, international student mobility and labour market outcomes. Based on survey data from Norwegian graduates, the authors find that mobile students are significantly more extravert, open, and agreeable compared with non-mobile students. Furthermore, results reveal that whereas degree mobility is related to both higher wages and more occupational self-efficacy, this is not the case for credit mobility. Since personality does play a role in the links between degree mobility and labour market outcomes, the study concludes that it is reasonable to distinguish between degree and credit mobility. In relating students’ personality traits with their mobility behaviour, the authors contribute towards a better understanding of the complex process of skill acquisition and how this is perceived on the labour market.

2. Kai Mühleck and Andreas Hadjar address skills in a broader context by examining the relationship between Higher Education and active citizenship. The authors evaluate various factors such as type of institution, type of degree, field of study, civic skills, social background, and activities during Higher Education. Based on data from the Eurograduate pilot survey, the study compares the mechanisms contributing towards active citizenship in five European countries. They find that Higher Education participation has a significant impact on political participation, with university graduates, Master’s graduates, graduates of humanities and social sciences, and those with a higher education background showing higher levels of participation. Furthermore, practical experiences, international mobility, and volunteer work are linked to increased participation. Policy initiatives frequently refer to the broader societal function of skill acquisition and Higher Education such as civic participation, yet, this has been rarely considered in empirical studies. In addressing this issue, the study makes an essential contribution to research on the value of skills and skill acquisition.

3. The study by Ana Santiago Vela and Anja Hall expands upon the existing understanding of skill mismatch. While previous studies are limited to cognitive evaluations of being overskilled or underskilled (or both), the authors introduce an affective aspect that takes into account how workers handle the mismatch (i.e. feeling overchallenged or underchallenged). Using the German BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey, the authors compare the impact of affective skill mismatch on job satisfaction between Higher Education and Vocational Education and Training graduates. The findings show that being underskilled by itself has no negative impact on job satisfaction, yet, when combined with feeling overchallenged, it significantly lowers job satisfaction. Being overskilled decreases job satisfaction, and this effect is amplified when employees are also feeling underchallenged.

4. Siv-Elisabeth Skjelbred and Kjersti Nesje focus on the topical issue of labour markets success of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in Norway and they challenge the expectation that STEM guarantees job security. The study concentrates on ‘Differences in transition to the labour market across STEM graduates’ and compares labour market outcomes of Norwegian graduates with a professional STEM Master’s degree to those of their peers with a non-professional STEM Master’s degree. Results show that STEM graduates with professional degrees have better employment outcomes. However, their unemployment rate is more susceptible to economic fluctuations. The results indicate that having a professional STEM degree does not guarantee immunity from unemployment, unlike it is the case in other professional degrees.

5. The study by Adela García-Aracil, Rosa Isusi-Fagoaga, and Isidora Navarro-Milla analyses employability in Belarus. The authors rely on a competency-based approach to employability and use the FOSTERC data to assess how the employability of Higher Education graduates is perceived by employers. They focus on differences across Higher Education institutions, and they identify skill domains that are most relevant for enhancing graduates' employability. The authors find that there is a lack of consensus among employers regarding their perceptions of graduates' employability. Employers generally expect graduates to have high cognitive competencies. However, they do not place a high emphasis on leadership and entrepreneurial skills. This may be due to the high level of state involvement in business management in Belarus, where employee autonomy is not considered a priority. The authors recommend that HR professionals should be aware of local labour market conditions and government regulations in order to enhance employees' capabilities, foster private and entrepreneurial initiatives, and ultimately drive productivity and growth in Belarus.

6. Giampiero Passaretta, Petra Sauer, Ulrike Schwabe, and Katarina Weßling use the Eurograduate pilot survey to analyse ‘The role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch for gender inequalities in labour income of higher education graduates in Europe’. The authors employ a method of decomposition to analyse the effect of mismatches on gendered income inequalities. They find considerable country variations in the extent of gender earning gaps and gender wage gaps. However, the decomposition reveals that neither overeducation nor horizontal mismatch contribute to explaining these gender income gaps. An extensive analysis of the causes for the null finding shows that the lack of mediation can be attributed to either the absence of gender disparities in overeducation or the absence of income penalties associated with field-of-study mismatch and field-specific overskilling.

7. The last contribution is a methodological one by Vítězslav Lounek and Radim Ryska. The authors address the comparability of Likert-style items across different countries in large-scale international surveys. Using the Eurograduate pilot survey, the authors employ latent class analysis to determine the response patterns from graduates' self-assessment of acquired and required skills and how these patterns vary across countries. The results indicate that countries differ in terms of the number of classes that fit the data structure best. Attempting to address the national specificities by combining the levels of acquired and required skills into a single measurement of skill surplus/deficit improves comparability. The study’s conclusion is highly relevant to survey researchers: the assumption that respondents understand self-assessed scales of skills in the same way across countries cannot be supported.