The end of the credential society? An analysis of the relationship between education and the labour market using big data

ABSTRACT

A major focus of sociological research is on the role of the credential as a ‘currency of opportunity’, mediating the relationship between education and occupational destinations. However, the labour market has largely remained a ‘black box’ in sociological and education policy studies. This article draws on ‘big data’ from over 21,000,000 job adverts to explore how employers in the UK describe job requirements, with particular reference to the role of credentials. It challenges existing theories premised upon the notion that higher levels of formal education determine individual (dis)advantage in the competition for jobs. Although they have different views of the relationship between credentials, opportunity and efficiency, these theories assume that credentials largely determine occupational hiring. Our analysis suggests that formal academic credentials play a relatively minor differentiating role in the UK labour market, as the majority of employer’s place greater emphasis on ‘job readiness’. This raises a number of issues for sociological and policy analysis, including the future role of credentials in the (re)production of educational and labour market inequalities. Methodologically, the article highlights how the use of big data can contribute to the analysis of education, skills and the labour market.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualifications
• credential society
• social inequality
• job readiness
• technical-function theories
• queue theory
• social closure theory
• job adverts analysis
• big data
• UK

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Gareth Rees, Heike Solga and Bledi Taska for comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Any remaining errors are the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Protsch and Solga (2015) sent 322 applications for apprenticeship positions in Germany, and analysed data from 70 employers in the first wave of their study and 87 in the second wave. Di Stasio (2013) gathered data on around 2,400 ‘hiring propensities’ from 131 employers in 3 countries (see also DiStasio 2014). Jackson (2007), Dörfler and Van de Werfhorst (2009) along with Bennett (2002), have attempted to cast a light into the black box of the labour market by interrogating between 1,000 and 5,000 job openings Jackson studied local/ national British newspaper adverts; Dörfler and van de Werfhorst studied Austrian newspaper adverts, Bennett studied six UK graduate recruitment online databases plus in-house hard copy publications.

2. See http://burning-glass.com/.

3. The best represented job openings in our sample were business, administration and management (10% of records), followed by electrical and electronic engineering technologists/ technicians (9%).

4. This figure is fairly constant throughout the 3-year period (16% in 2012; 18% in 2013 and 19% in 2014).

5. They also reported an increasing use of qualifications in Austrian job advertisements (from 61% in 1985 to 73% in 2005). However, at the same time they also report the increasing importance of social and cognitive skills that they see as not necessarily obtained through schooling.

6. The relatively higher requirements for ‘caring, leisure and other service occupations’ category may be related to the National Health Service qualification requirements/license to practice in social care, childcare and other related professions.

7. Jackson’s used the Socio-economic classification (SEC) whereas our analysis uses the Standard Occupational Classification 2010.

8. We have reported results for all vacancies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phillip Brown

Phillip Brown is Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and Distinguished Visiting Professor, Zhengzhou University, China. His current research includes the impact of digital innovation for the future of education, work and labour markets.

Manuel Souto-Otero

Manuel Souto-Otero is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. His research focuses on education policy analysis and evaluation - in particular in the areas of social stratification, internationalisation, privatisation and governance.