Credential inflation and decredentialization: Re-examining the mechanism of the devaluation of degrees

Sociologists have long used credential inflation theory to explain the devaluation of tertiary education degrees as the consequence of the excessive supply of educated personnel. However, the literature has inadequately examined two fundamental conditions: the combination of degrees/skills that individuals possess and the level of degrees. In this article, cross-country multilevel regressions reveal lower-level degrees (i.e. short-cycle tertiary) are devalued due to the larger extent of lower-level tertiary expansion in a society, regardless of degree holders' skills level. This is consistent with the concept of credential inflation. In contrast, alongside the proliferation of higher-level tertiary education (i.e. bachelor and above), individuals with such degrees are penalized only when they lack high skills. Put differently, higher-level degree holders retain their rewards despite their diminishing scarcity as long as they possess high skills. Meanwhile, high skills unaccompanied by tertiary degrees lose their premium merely in connection with lower-level tertiary expansion. These results suggest credentialism is intensified and credential inflation operates in societies where the extent of lower-level tertiary expansion is relatively large, whereas 'decredentialization' emerges along with the larger extent of higher-level tertiary expansion in a way that devalues credentials as such whilst relatively enhancing the role of skills in reward allocation

No More Playing \u27Catch-up\u27 with the West : Educational Policy during the "Lost Two Decades"

失われた20年と日本研究のこれから（京都 : 2015年6月30日-7月2日）・失われた20年と日本社会の変容（ハーバード : 2015年11月13日

Academic Organization and Students\u27 Career Formation : A Study of Student Subculture and School Organization in Japanese High Schools (2)

The aim of this study is to find the relations of school organizational structure and non-organizational treatment to students career formation. We studied the relation of "Student Subculture and School Organization in Japanese High school" in 1979, which was reported in this bulletin in 1981. In that study, we showed the importance of school organization and teachers\u27 perspecctives as intervening variables. In this study, we focused on student career formation as an output variable. And we researched how student career formation is influenced by organizational and non-organizational features of the individual school. We tried three case studies. Each case contains two schools which have the same background. By this method, we could clarify school organizational and non-organizational effect on student career formation with any other variables controlled. The data we used are sub-samples of the former study in 1979. The number of the survey objects include 6 high schools, 6 staffs a school, 750 students and 68 teachers

From University to Work III Part 2 : How Students seek for ""Good Jobs"" in Non-Selective 4-Year-Colleges

This is the second report using the same survey data for non-selective college students in business major. In this report, we analyze the process of students\u27job seeking activities. We find that the timing and kinds of job seeking activities among those students are more diverse and less standardized than those from selective colleges. This less standardized feature of activities makes the process of job search for those non-selective college students more vague and more difficult. As a result, we also find that there are students, who stop or never start job seeking

The Rise of Uncertain Future Plans among Japanese High School Students

For the last decade, the number of high school graduates who do not have either jobs or postsecondary education has increased in Japan. Among those, who are called "MUGYOSHA" in Japanese, some are unemployed, but a larger part of them are graduates who do not have clear career plans and are inactive in seeking future careers after high school. What leads high school students to those uncertain future plans? What mechanisms are involved in emerging those uncertain career plans ? This study attempts to answer these questions based on a questionnaire survey data collected from 1,804 high school senior students in Tokyo. The analyses find : 1. general high school students are more likely to become "MUGYOSHA" than those at vocational high schools; 2. delayed decision about future plans lead to "MUGYOSHA"; 3. prospective "MUGYOSHA" students tend to have bad school records both in cognitive (academic) and non-cognitive (behavioral) aspects, and disregard good school records as important selection criteria for college admission and labor entry; 4. student\u27social backgrounds do not strongly relate with the emerge of "MUGYOSHA"; and 5. miscommunication with parents about their future discourages students to make clear career plans. Based on these findings, we argue that recent educational reform proposals in Japan, which try to mitigates entrance examination pressures on students, may lead to produce more students with uncertain career plans in future

From College to Work : Its Embeddedness in Alumni-Student Relationships in Japan

New college graduates in Japan find their entry level jobs mainly through relationships with their university almuni. How have those practices developed? What impact do they have on college graduates\u27 job opportunities? What sociological mechanisms are included in those job seeking practices? By focussing on the entry of new college graduates into the labor force during 16 years from 1975 to 1990,this study analyses : (1) the extent to which college graduates find jobs through relationships to alumni (2) how the entry route to jobs through alumni-student relationships formed and devolped (3) how extensively this transition to work through alumni-student relationtips prevails in local universities (4) how female students use this transition route differently from male students and what it means in terms of gender differentiations in labor markets. Based on both qualitative and quantitative data analyses, this study discusses how educational credentialism in Japan is embedded in the transition practices from college to work through alumni-student relationships