This paper contributes to debates around social mobility and social capital by exploring the links between social class background, assistance from non-parental personal contacts for finding employment, and social class destination. The literature on social mobility, social capital and social networks is reviewed, drawing a conceptual distinction…

Some countries have certifying institutions for competence acquired at the workplace. These institutions provide incentives for workplace training that may have favourable effects on productivity, earnings and labour market participation. We present evidence on the earnings effects of attaining vocational qualifications in adulthood through two…

The importance of people gaining new, and high-level, qualifications in adulthood has been much emphasised in policy rhetoric. It is widely assumed that adults should engage in learning throughout their working life in order to adapt to changing conditions in the labour market and to ensure that national economies remain competitive in a global…

This article investigates the relation between the second chance of increase in formal education amongst low-educated adults in Sweden and long-term wage development. Despite the awareness of the role of education for employability and individuals' overall life chances, surprisingly few studies have investigated the wage effects of Second-Chance…

Lifting the rate of workforce participation in Australia has been called "the challenge of the decade". In light of the ageing workforce, changing nature of work demands and workforce attitudes, the need for insight into current patterns of workforce participation has never been more urgent. The following paper offers an overview of an…

Despite their generally higher educational attainment, young women are characterised by lower labour market positions than men in Belgium. Using regression and decomposition analyses on data from the longitudinal SONAR survey on the transition from school to work, we examine to what extent subject choice and processes of family formation can…