Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken

The knowledge society puts high demands on education, but there is considerable dispute on what competencies should be acquired in education. Some argue that curricula should be more aligned with the needs of the labour market and state that students should develop more specific competencies to successfully function on the labour market. Others point out that technological development quickly render specific competences obsolete and argue that students should develop more generic competencies.This article provides a review on what we know about the acquisition of generic and specific competencies in education, how these competencies affect the labour market entry and later career and the implications one can draw for education.

This article addresses the dynamics in overeducation and crowding out in the Dutch labour market. More specifically, it is investigated whether structural or cyclical overeducation and crowding out is predominant. In order to do so, trends in the transition from adequate employment into overeducation, unemployment or inactivity and the other way around are analysed. Results of discrete-time event history analysis, using the OSA Labour supply panel 1988-2004, show that cyclical overeducation and crowding out exist. First of all, the transition rate from adequate employment into overeducation, unemployment or inactivity is larger, as the aggregate unemployment rate is higher. In addition, the results demonstrate that the conditional likelihood of entering adequate employment from overeducation, unemployment or inactivity is smaller, as the unemployment level is higher. There was no evidence found for structural overeducation and crowding out in the Dutch labour market.

The literature on mismatch considers the so-called ‘overeducated’ mostly as a homogeneous category and does not consider the match between subject and job content. In this article we distinguish between the overeducated with a horizontal match and those without a horizontal match. Our starting hypothesis is that being overeducated without realizing a horizontal match is especially problematic. Our results, based on data for higher education graduates in Flanders, are consistent with this. We find that the negative effect of being overeducated is stronger for youngsters without a horizontal match. We also find that both types of overeducation are connected to different mechanisms. The regional unemployment rate, for instance, mainly explains overeducation with horizontal match. Both types of overeducation, even if not in the same way, are also influenced by the quality of human capital as well as the subject of study.

In the 20^th century in all Western countries the participation in education increased tremendously. Most research on educational expansion focuses on changes in the strength of the education effect on labor market outcomes. An important question remains: has educational expansion impacted the reason why education gets rewarded in the labor market? Modernization theory argues that with educational expansion the human capital model of education becomes a better explanation. Displacement theory, on the other hand, argues that educational expansion led to a displacement of lower educated from the labor market, and consequently a bigger importance of the positional good model. With data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) from 1985 to 2008, for 30 countries cohorts of respondents who graduated between 1951 and 2003 are created. In this cohortdesign the effects of an absolute measure of education (according to the human capital model) and a relative measure of education (according to the positional good model) on income are estimated in multilevel models. While the effect of the absolute measure remains stable, the effect size of the relative measure increases. In times of educational expansion, education becomes more and more a positional good.

We review empirical studies about the well-being effects of paid work as activity in comparison with other activities (hedonic well-being), and of being employed in comparison with unemployment, being a housewife and being retired (life satisfaction). The hedonic well-being of work and of work-related social interactions is lower than of almost all other activities and interactions. Nevertheless, employed workers have a much higher life satisfaction than the unemployed and also a higher hedonic well-being during other activities. Housewives’ level of life satisfaction is about equal to the level of the employed, whereas the retired attain an even higher level. Life satisfaction of workers is somewhat lower if they work more hours, especially for women. The effect of income on life satisfaction is small and probably people work more hours than can be justified by the resulting increase of life satisfaction. These findings indicate that aspirations related to work are more important for well-being than the conditions of employment. We interpret the findings in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic life goals and the need for self-determination. We tentatively conclude that work does more positively affect well-being if it does more appeal to intrinsic than to extrinsic aspirations.

Due to demographic changes, the situation of single parents has received a lot of attention in public debate and new policies. Nevertheless, little scientific information is available on the daily life and social conditions of single parents. In a dual parents household, previous research found two types of strategies to find a work-life balance. First, one can choose to intervene in the work role: the parent can reduce, adjust or end his/her working schedule. Second, one can adjust their family role by outsourcing a part of his/her family role. However, the question remains which strategies single parents use to find a work-family balance. Using 28 biographical interviews, this qualitative research focused on the daily life of single parents in Flanders and their search for a work-life balance. The results suggest four types of single parents, based on criteria such as job satisfaction, feelings of guilt, educational problems, and socio-economical characteristics. This article will discuss for each of these four groups the strategies they use to (re-)find balance in their work-life conflict.