Higher education graduates' employability and social positioning in the labour market (HighEmploy)

This multidisciplinary multi-method project focuses on higher education (HE) graduates’ employability and social positioning in the labour market. The study will explore HE graduate employability as a relational and socially mediated process and examine graduate employability in the Finnish HE and labour market context taking into account not only the supply but also the demand of graduates in the labour market and positional competition inherent in graduate employability. The study draws from social and educational sciences and relies on a multi-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative data (register-based data-set, survey, follow-up interviews) and methods. The project provides: 1) Contextualized and cross-sectional analysis of the relative value of education and social selectiveness in HE graduate employability 2) Contextualized and longitudinal analysis of HE graduates’ self-perceptions and social positioning in relation to employability and labour market trajectories. The project contributes to the theoretical and methodological discussions on employability at the societal and structural macro level of the graduate labour market, at the institutional meso level from which graduates of the Finnish dual HE system enter the labor market, and at the personal micro level as graduates interpret, negotiate and manage employability and the consecutive processes of their labour market trajectories.