Variation in employment inequality between workers with vocational and general education over the career

Abstract

Vocational education is often credited with easing school-to-work transitions but may come with late-career disadvantages due to faster skill obsolescence. Previous findings on this “career trade-off” remain inconsistent restricting policy guidance. This study argues that inconsistencies are primarily rooted in (1) variation in the categorization of educational tracks and (2) differences in institutional context across countries. Two theoretical claims are tested: first, that career disparities between vocational and general education are larger at the secondary than at the tertiary level; second, that the career trade-off is more pronounced in countries with higher vocational specificity. Analyzing over one million person-year observations from harmonized cross-national panel data covering Australia, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, and the UK indicates that the career trade-off is context-dependent. Late-career disadvantages for vocational graduates appear predominantly at the tertiary level; at the secondary level, vocational graduates often have equal or better employment prospects than general graduates over the career. This suggests that benefits associated with general education are likely confined to those with higher-level qualifications. Comparing employment trajectories across countries reveals a mixed picture challenging the explanatory power of vocational specificity as a macro-level moderator of career differences between types of graduates. Taken together, these findings call for a reassessment of the role of skill specificity in shaping employment disparities over the life course.