Who gets a job after graduation? Factors affecting the early career employment chances of higher education graduates in Poland

Abstract

The massification of higher education in Poland means that many students choose this educational pathway to improve their chances for a good job. Therefore, the labour market outcomes of graduates provide an important perspective for future students, higher education institutions, as well as decision makers at the national level. The Polish Graduate Tracking System (ELA), based on administrative data, is designed to monitor graduates' outcomes in the labour market by type of studies, higher education institution, as well as individual curricula. Results of the first two years of graduate tracking show that the outcomes vary by study area, but also change over time. While in the first months after graduation, aspects such as prior experience in the labour market and place of residence have a substantial effect on employment chances, in the longer run, they lose their importance relative to other factors.

Does It Pay to Study Economic Sciences? Differences in Salaries Among Graduates of Different Faculties – Evidence From Poland

“…The role of tertiary education, measured by the participation rate increased in almost all OECD countries in the late nineties. According to this massification process there are rising concerns about quality of more and more accessible higher education and about university-to-work transition [Jasiński et al 2017]. In European countries higher education institutions (HEIs) are financed mainly publicly from governmental budgets [Paliszkiewicz 2010].…”

“…than efficiency. In the long run, however such knowledge about career tracks of graduates could help to better allocate rare resources -"understanding the university-to-work transition is vital to improve the efficiency of the use of resources spent on higher education" [Jasiński et al 2017]. The problem of such demand oriented approach is that it relays on data which is often poor available -the majority of those studies was done by surveys.…”

“…Nevertheless some countries (Spain, Austria, Scandinavian countries, Hungary, Lithuania) start to track careers of graduates by combining administrative data from many sources. In 2014 Poland joined these countries by establishing Polish Graduates Tracking System -GTS [Jasiński et al 2017;Polish Graduates… 2018].…”

“…Such growth induced the concerns about the quality of higher education, which in common opinion felt down as a result of massification [Pietrzak 2013]. Despite the demographic changes which led to the decrease in the number of students to 1.35 million in 2016 [Jasiński et al 2017], the problem of educational quality is still on the agenda of the public discussion. Many commentators lamented the negative influence of the private HEIs on the quality of higher education.…”

“…Newly introduced GTS system helps to move this limitation away. For example according to the recent results obtained by M. Jasiński et al [2017], economics is one of the most gainful academic disciplines. Among 22 academic disciplines it occupies 4 th position with regard to the height of average salary during two years after graduation.…”