Hard lessons for lifelong learners? age and experience in the graduate labour market

Purcell, Kate; Wilton, Nick; Elias, Peter

Abstract

The expansion of the higher education system and widening access to undergraduate study has led to growing diversity within the graduate labour supply, including increasing numbers who studied for their degrees as mature students. Analysis of graduates entering the labour market prior to the major expansion in the early 1990s indicated that those over the age of 30 had considerably more difficulty than younger graduates in accessing the career opportunities for which their education had equipped them. Is this still the case for more recent graduates? Drawing on a major qualitative and quantitative study of a class of graduates who completed their undergraduate degree courses in 1995, this paper explores early career development and employment outcomes according to age at graduation. Although we find considerable diversity among all age groups, mature graduates were more likely than their younger peers to experience difficulty in accessing appropriate employment, had a lower rate of earnings growth and expressed higher levels of dissatisfaction with their jobs. © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 10, 2016
• Journal: Higher Education Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0951-5224
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-2273
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 57-82
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2006.00338.x
• Keywords: age, inequality, graduates, higher education, labour market, employment
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1031236
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2006.00338.x
• Contract Date: Feb 10, 2016