Labor, Markets, and Educational Restructuring

Robert Zemsky

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1998, vol. 559, issue 1, 77-90

Abstract: Using a theoretical framework developed by Professor Akira Arimoto to describe recent changes in the Japanese system of higher education, Robert Zemsky discusses what happens when higher education becomes the norm in a society and when this massification of a higher education system gives way to post-massification. Zemsky demonstrates how, in the current era of post-massification, American higher education is a system under duress, at a time when the economy, shifting demographics, and political lassitude have forced a restructuring of the enterprise. He examines trends such as the price-income squeeze, where the economic returns to college have fallen while the cost has risen; the bifurcation of institutions into outlets and medallions; the reduced demand for young workers; and the dynamics of local labor and education markets. Zemsky concludes that, once the market for college graduates becomes saturated in a locality, the boundary between massification and post-massification is crossed, leading to a restratification of both educational attainment and economic advantage.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716298559001007 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:559:y:1998:i:1:p:77-90

DOI: 10.1177/0002716298559001007

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().