ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on employment outcomes in the context of the expansion of higher education and the recent economic downturn. Focusing on graduate transitions into employment, the types of jobs in which graduates are employed and the pay of those jobs, this chapter highlights the more complex situation empirically in which motivations and outcomes are more varied and less predictable. The chapter analyses the jobs in which graduates are employed and, again, indicates the changes in the pattern of that employment. With the expansion of higher education, the over-supply of graduates and the introduction of fees to study, policy focuses on graduate job destination and earnings as forms of return to individuals. Drawing on research undertaken by staff from the Institute for Employment Research and elsewhere, it has shown the shift in applicants and students expectations about the purposes and outcomes function of higher education study.
