Education, Employers and Class Mobility

In this paper, we start from certain propositions central to the liberal (or functionalist) theory of industrialism, which represent education as playing a crucial, and increasing, role in the mediation of intergenerational class mobility. We then note recent British findings that call the liberal theory into question: i.e. findings that indicate that the importance of education in mediating mobility is tending, if anything, to decline. We go on to suggest a possible explanation for this tendency in which employers are the central actors. More specifically, we suggest grounds for supposing that, under prevailing conditions of the demand for and supply of education, employers may find educational qualifications of decreasing value to them in making their personnel decisions, both as certifying relevant competencies and as signalling unobservable but desirable attributes on the part of potential employees. We then turn to empirical evidence and present, first, a detailed analysis of newspaper job advertisements, and second, relatively disaggregated analyses of the effects of education on intergenerational mobility. In both respects, the evidence from these sources is generally consistent with the theoretical arguments previously outlined.