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European Sociological Review Advance Access published online on December 18, 2006
European Sociological Review, doi:10.1093/esr/jcl031
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Scarcity and Abundance: Reconciling Trends in the Effects of Education on Social Class and Earnings in Great Britain 1972–2003

Herman G. van de Werfhorst

Herman G. van de Werfhorst, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, OZ, Achterburgwal 185, 1012 DK Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: H.G.vandeWerfhorst{at}uva.nl.

This study analyses trends in the effects of education on occupational outcomes in Great Britain. It shows that the direction and strength of the trend in the effects of education varies between social class and earnings. The trend in the effect of education on social class is unequivocally downwards, but on earnings it was downwards during the 1970s, levelled out in the 1980s, and has somewhat increased since then. This conforms to an L-shaped or U-shaped trend, depending on the qualification levels that are compared. Supposedly universalistic claims on changing labour market returns in response to changes in demand for and supply of qualifications are not so universalistic as often thought. The middle classes have become increasingly diverse in the kinds of work done, making it difficult to see increasingly functional and/or credentialistic matches between education and class, whereas earnings can easily be adjusted to changes in supply and demand. However, earnings variation has increased between classes, so that the trends in the effect of education on earnings are partly shaped by increased class differentiation in employment relations.

Manuscript received: December 1, 2005.


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