Are postgraduate qualifications the ‘new frontier of social mobility’?

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between social origin, postgraduate degree attainment, and occupational outcomes across five British age-group cohorts. We use recently-available UK Labour Force Survey data to conduct a series of logistic regressions of postgraduate (masters or doctorate) degree attainment among those with first degrees, with controls for measures of degree classification, degree subject, age, gender, ethnicity and national origin. We find a marked strengthening of the effect of class origin on degree- and occupational attainment across age cohorts. While for older generations there is little or no difference by class origin in the rates at which first-degree graduates attain postgraduate degrees, those with working-class-origins in the youngest age-group are only about 28 per cent as likely to obtain a postgraduate degree when compared with their peers from privileged origins. Moreover, social origin matters more for occupational destination, even among those with postgraduate degrees, for those in younger age groups. These findings demonstrate the newly important, and increasing, role of postgraduate degrees in reproducing socio-economic inequality in the wake of the substantial expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate education. Our findings lend some support to the Maximally Maintained Inequality thesis, suggesting that gains in equality of access to first-degrees are indeed at risk from postgraduate expansion.

Exploring socioeconomic inequalities and access to elite postgraduate education among English graduates

“…A similar relationship also exists in other OECD countries (OECD, 2019). Likewise, Wakeling and Laurison (2017) find that postgraduate degree holders typically attain higher-status occupational positions, with this relationship being consistent over a long period. Surprisingly, and in spite of the above, there is a lack of research exploring inequalities of access to postgraduate study that considers institutional stratification.…”

“…Controlling for academic attainment explains some but not all of this difference (Wakeling, 2017). Wakeling and Laurison (2017) show that these differences have grown over time, in parallel with expansion of access to undergraduate degrees. Using geodemographic measures of socioeconomic background rather than occupational social class, research for government bodies in England (HEFCE, 2016) and Scotland have demonstrated similar patterns.…”

Using Bourdieu to explore graduate attributes in two online Master’s programmes

“…However, while our results suggest that such degrees are beneficial to graduates in economic, social and cultural terms, Master’s degrees bring considerable financial cost and are, therefore, outside of the reach of many. Indeed, there is some suggestion in the sociological literature that postgraduate qualifications are the new frontier of social mobility (Wakeling and Laurison 2017), and studies have shown that forms of capital valued within medicine, for example, are not equally accessible to all medical students, particularly those from lower socio-economic backgrounds (Mather and Parry 2009). Bourdieu has been criticised for assuming that cultural capital is experienced in similar ways (Sullivan 2001), and future research, incorporating an examination of how the social, cultural and economic backgrounds of students create challenges or opportunities for accessing and engaging in postgraduate education, could usefully extend his framework.…”

Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Outcomes in English Schools

“…Similar differentials in university entry have been documented by others using different data (Boliver, 2013; Chowdry, Crawford, Dearden, Goodman, & Vignoles, 2013). Furthermore, Wakeling and Laurison (2017) highlight a large socioeconomic differential in entry to postgraduate courses, with those from less privileged backgrounds "only about 28 per cent as likely to obtain a postgraduate degree when compared with their peers from privileged origins" (Wakeling & Laurison, 2017, p. 533). This gap is a relatively recent phenomenon occurring contemporaneously with the widening of access to undergraduate higher education.…”