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The focus of this paper is on the relationships between social origin, participation in tertiary education (enrolment, drop-out, enrolment at second level and post-tertiary education) and occupational instability among university graduates in a recent period of university and labour market reforms (the differentiation of higher education due to the 'Bologna process' and the flexibilization of employment contracts). In the first part of the paper we review these institutional reforms, discussing how they have changed the structure of opportunities and constraints for students and graduates. In the second part we analyse data from several cross-section waves of the Upper Secondary Graduates Survey and the University Graduates Survey which cover both pre- and post-reform cohorts. Results from logistic regression models show a slight decline in the association between parents' education and enrolment in tertiary education, whereas there is a reduction and a new increase of inequality in drop-outs. We also find remarkable effects of parents' education on enrolment in post-graduate courses, but smaller on the risks of having unstable jobs and both are mainly stable over time. Only a slight reduction of the role of social origin in university participation and in the transition to the labour market took place, but it seems not to be too closely connected to the specific reforms which occurred in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are policies to increase women’s share among university professors effective? The importance of gender equality on the labor market has been well established, but our understanding of what kind of policy is effective to increase the share of women is still unclear. Three sets of factors explain women’s low shares at higher job levels, notably individual, cultural, and structural or institutional perspectives, and policies to increase the proportion of women therefore should address these factors. This paper aims to investigate if they do so and if they are effective. We investigated the efficacy of gender equality policy measures in all 14 universities in the Netherlands, implemented between 2000 and 2007. Based on documents and interviews, 19 measures were identified that could be classified according to the three perspectives. The university with the most measures applied four times more measures than the one with the least measures. The more measures a university applied in the cultural perspective, the more likely it also applied measures in the other two perspectives. Whereas the HR managers and policy makers at universities reported skepticism and lack of evaluations, our study reveals a positive relationship between policy measures and the reduction of the glass ceiling and between policies in the cultural perspective and the increase of the proportion of women among professors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]