The completion of a PhD programme is understood as a channel that provides specialisation and skills for students to be employed as highly-qualified workers or researchers. The Bologna Process and the EU Horizon 2020 have enhanced its role as an instrument to achieve the long-standing objectives of innovation proposed by the construction of the 'Europe of Knowledge'. In this context, the Europe 2020 strategy is considered as one of the main EU instruments to reinforce the importance of innovation, promote the knowledge-based economy and increase competitiveness and economic growth. These legislative efforts are having a positive impact on the educational

Adolescents' time use is an interesting topic for parents and policymakers. The concern arises because time allocation between productive and unproductive activities shapes the personality of children, which has important long-term consequences on their academic and employment success. Many studies conclude family environment affects how kids spend their time. The household type, the parents' characteristics and the family customs are related to the way children spend their time. An attractive issue is the effect of the parental education on the time use patterns of kids. The human capital acquired by the parents along with their relations with the family socioeconomic status, the social networks and the access to information constitute alternative scenarios that determine the activities of young people throughout the day and have an impact on their personal development and on their career. The primary objective of this paper is to analyse these topics for Spain, paying special attention to the influence of parents' education on children's time use. The empirical analysis use data from the Time Use Survey (INE). This dataset is suited for the purposes of this study since it uses a statistical measure called "time budget", which records the sequence and duration of activities conducted by a person over a period of 24 h and provides information about the personal characteristics of the household members. The specification and estimation of censored regression models is the methodology applied. The main results reveal that the adolescents' decisions about time allocation depend on their personal and family characteristics. In particular, parental education exerts a relevant influence on the participation and duration of productive or constructive activities, which is coherent with the predictions of the Ecological Systems Theory.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causality between job mobility status, occupational career and wage growth. First, it will be verified whether the type of job-to-job mobility has some influence on the occupational mobility and, second, whether the type of occupational change has some effect on wage growth for both movers and stayers. Design/methodology/approach The influence of job-to-job mobility on occupational mobility is explained through a random effect panel multinomial logit model to account for the unobserved individual heterogeneity. Next, the effect of occupational mobility on wage growth for both movers and stayers is obtained after applying Heckman’s two-step procedure that corrects the endogeneity of occupational mobility in a panel data framework. Findings The main results confirm, first, that inter-firm mobility is a mechanism used by the worker to achieve upward mobility. Second, the accumulation of human capital has a positive influence on promotions for movers and stayers, getting the highest probability of upward occupational mobility for workers with higher education. Moreover, promotion is a suitable mechanism for improving worker’s wages. In particular, the wage gain is between 5 percent for stayers and 9 percent for quitters compared to workers who do not change their occupation. Social implications The main findings of this research would justify the implementation of active labor market policies that increase market transparency and decrease information asymmetries between workers and employers. In this way, the adjustment process between job offer and demand would improve and workers would have more possibilities of ascending on the occupational ladder and getting better-paid jobs. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study in the economic literature discussing Spain that examines the links between change of firm, occupational mobility and wage dynamics.

PurposeThe current expansion of the knowledge economy and its requirements of highly educated workers make interesting to analyse the effects on the labour market outcomes of completing a master's degree. This study examines the factors determining the probability of pursuing a postgraduate programme and observes whether workers reaching this educational attainment reap the benefits of their human capital investment through better paid jobs compared to college-only degree holders. On the other hand, it analyses whether individuals with a master's degree are more prone to upward wage mobility.Design/methodology/approachThe study relies on data obtained from the second survey on the Labour Insertion of University Graduates conducted by the National Statistics Institute (INE, 2019). This survey allows us to observe labour market transitions of the first group of Spanish university graduates under the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and their earnings. The methodological procedure consists of the estimation of wage models controlling for the unobservable differences between workers who have or have not completed a master's degree.FindingsThe results indicate a significant positive impact of master's degree on salaries. Furthermore, individuals with postgraduate studies are more prone to upward wage mobility in comparison to college-only degree holders.Research limitations/implicationsData used does not allow us to identify which competences associated with the completion of a master's degree are more remunerated by employers.Practical implicationsThe econometric specification applied allows us to compute the direct effect of a master's degree on wages and predict the average probability that an individual is in a determined wage interval according to the knowledge area and controlling by the rest of characteristics.Social implicationsThe findings are helpful to diagnose and understand how the knowledge acquired through postgraduate studies are rewarded by the labour market, which is essential to evaluate the return on educational investments when making decisions about whether or not to continue postgraduate studies.Originality/valueThis research addresses novelty aspects on tertiary education in Spain and its effects on workers' careers.