Abstract

As higher education participation expanded in the UK, more and more graduates entered occupations once occupied by non-graduates. Does this mean that their skills are being under-utilised?

Evidence attempting to answer this question is dominated by inferences from examination of wage premia or by self-reporting of graduates in a variety of surveys. We argue that such evidence is of limited use. Direct examination of what has actually happened to the content of those jobs that have become more “graduatised” is limited. We attempt to look directly at these jobs using data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey.

Craig Holmes is a teaching fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford.

Ken Mayhew is Emeritus Professor of Education and Economic Performance at Oxford University, Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and was the founding Director of SKOPE .