A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
The AQU Catalunya study analysing inequalities in the employment outcomes of graduates based on their social class provides a dataset that may help actors in the SUC to strengthen the social dimension of our higher education system.
AQU Catalunya has recently presented its second study analysing inequalities in the employment outcomes of graduates based on their social class and the extent to which the Catalan Higher Education System (SUC) promotes their social mobility. The results of the study show that if a young person wants to achieve social mobility, obtaining a bachelor’s degree remains an effective option. University education enables good employment outcomes, regardless of students’ social class, and even balances out the likelihood of achieving success in the job market among graduates from different social classes who have the same bachelor’s degree. In this respect, the study has another important finding: students from different social classes do not always study the same degree. Students from higher social classes tend to enrol in bachelor’s degrees with better employment outcomes, such as medicine and certain fields of engineering; consequently, at the aggregate level, their jobs tends to be more stable and better-paid. In short, if two students from different social classes study medicine, there will be no differences in their employment outcomes; however, students from higher social classes are more likely to study medicine than those who are working-class.
The President of AQU Catalunya, Francesc Xavier Grau, summed up these findings as follows: “Although the ‘social elevator’ works, it does not go up to the same floors; as a result, social segregation is infinitely prolonged”. This dual function on the part of universities, which occurs not only in Catalonia but also elsewhere, is a common characteristic of higher education systems. In this respect, the sociologist Manuel Castells defines them as “dynamic systems with contradictory functions”, and the institutions that form part of such systems play a fundamental role in both the expansion of educational opportunities and the creation of professional elites.
Taking this dual nature on the part of higher education systems into account, the AQU Catalunya study provides a dataset that may help actors in the SUC to strengthen the social dimension of our higher education system. Firstly, it shows that Catalan universities are a powerful driver of social mobility, especially those located outside Barcelona. As shown by the figure below, there are a number of bachelor’s degrees that are taught outside Barcelona, in areas of study such as social intervention, education, psychology and psychotherapy, whose graduates tend to hail from more modest family backgrounds and which promote an increased level of social mobility.
Secondly, and as shown in the following table, it reveals that not all degrees have an equitable distribution with regard to their graduates. There are a number of degrees that tend to have better career prospects and whose graduates are more likely to come from the higher social classes. For example, nearly six out of every ten graduates in fields related to medicine and the biological sciences are from the higher social classes, and there is no sub-category of engineering where less than 45% of graduates are from these classes. In contrast, bachelor’s degrees in social intervention and education have an increased number of working-class graduates.
At AQU Catalunya we firmly believe in an evidence-based model of continuous improvement. That is why we have produced this study, along with a catalogue of equity indicators, which proposes a set of measures that enable the monitoring of equity at university level: not only with regard to employment outcomes, but also in terms of access to and achievement in university education. We hope that the data we have analysed in the study on equity in employment outcomes and social mobility, and the proposed indicators for access to and achievement in university education, may help actors in the SUC to gain a better understanding of the system’s current social dimension, its strengths, and the areas where it needs to improve.