Returns to human capital investments in terms of wage premium are typically investigated by economists. This paper takes a similar approach of sociological kind; it analyzes occupational gains achieved by having higher level of education. The dependent variable of the study, occupational gains, is measured by Treiman’s prestige score. The basic assumption is that people with higher level of schooling end up in jobs with higher social prestige. A further postulation is that those in jobs with higher prestige accumulate other social benefits (better social circumstances, higher respect, stronger inclusion in the society, better position in networking, social contacts including partnership, etc.). Thus, the study regards occupational prestige as an indicator of the wide range of social gains. The paper applies multivariate analysis; the effect of education on occupation is measured by prestige gains from primary to secondary and from secondary to tertiary level of schooling, also by increase of classes completed. The models control for gender, age, urban-rural difference for the respondents.
European Social Survey data are used; seven rounds between 2002 and 2014 are merged for 16 countries, which participated in all rounds (total N is around 200,000). While the positive impact of education on occupational gains is not much debatable, the paper focuses on exploring the international variation in gains in the various regimes, the 16 countries form. Based on the regime differences in the contextual conditions for the links between the school system and the labor market (occupational structure), the following five groups will be distinguished: Flexcurity: DK, FI, NO, SE, NL; Corporative: BE, CH, DE (West), FR; Liberal: UK, IE; Mediterranean: ES, PT; Post-communist: DE (East), HU, PL, SI. The occupational (prestige) gains are expected to be higher in countries (regimes) where the link between education and occupation is stronger, structurally more determined.
