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This paper investigates the impact of human capital, social capital, career planning behavior, protean career orientation and core self-evaluations on students' academic and life satisfaction in China, with the mediation effect of perceived employability and moderation effect of perceived labor market conditions. Data were collected by distributing online questionnaires to 1155 students in three types of universities. All the hypothesized direct paths and the mediation effects were supported. The moderation effect was partially supported. Perceived employability contributes to positive evaluations about life and academic work, and the perception of labor market condition could be enhanced to improve students' academic evaluations.

Although often seen as places of culture, cultivation and creativity, language courses borrow the language of creativity for test-centered practices. Research in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology has long recognized language courses as sites for the legitimation of neoliberal ideals that emphasize language as global, individual, and economic, human capital for the global market. Yet research in education often focuses on language education as building student identities, ignoring how it prepares students for participation in an affluent 'creative class.' This paper aims to bring a more critical lens on discourses of creativity in the classroom. It explores how neoliberal ideology is realized in teacher development literature on creative management, and it investigates how this commercial creativity affects the language curriculum and assessment in a New England High School, ending with a call to a more critical, communal creativity.

This study deployed a mixed-method approach to explore how international graduates identified and strategically utilised their resources to negotiate employability in the host country. One hundred and eighty international graduates from Australian universities participated in a survey and in-depth interviews. Findings revealed that employability was determined by various forms of capital including human, cultural social, identity and psychological. More importantly, the graduates had to develop 'agentic capital' to decide how to utilise these forms of capital appropriately. Social and cultural capitals emerged as the crucially important elements when the graduates looked for opportunities to get a foot into the labour market. These forms of capital enabled the graduates to mobilise their human capital. However, to navigate barriers in the workplace, the articulation of a sound understanding about the working culture became a 'must' because the graduates found it hard to understand hidden rules and conventions in the labour market. Results from the study indicate that graduate employability should not just be measured right after students' graduation because different forms of capital play their significant roles at different stages of the graduates' career development. Besides, higher education should equip students with various forms of capital.

Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the reasons for the gap between academic education and the required skills of the labor market in Iran. Design/methodology/approach: For this purpose, the authors adopted a thematic analysis method. The participants in the study were connoisseurs from universities and research institutes in Iran, who were selected with purposeful sampling methods of snowball type. To collect the data, the authors used a semi-structured interview and performed a thematic analysis for data analysis. Findings: The findings showed that the views and perceptions of the connoisseurs participating in the study about the reasons for the gap between academic education and the skills required in the labor market in Iran can be classified into four main themes including lack of attention to labor market needs in the academic curricula, lack of attention to practical and entrepreneurial skills in the academic curricula, the weak link between universities and industry and society, and shortage of academic resources and equipment in some academic disciplines. Originality/value: The present study had three implications. First, the human capital theory, the social closure theory, the positional conflict theory and the labor market segmentation theory are more compatible with the labor market of Iranian graduates, compared to other theories of the labor market. Second, the lack of coordination between academic education and the required skills in the labor market has weakened the Iranian economy. Third, the absence of practical and entrepreneurial skills in academic graduates has led to increased unemployment in Iranian society.

This paper aims to conceptualise and operationalise an Employability Capital Growth Model (ECGM) via a systematic literature review of 42,558 manuscripts from Web of Science and Scopus databases published between 2016 and 2022 from the fields of graduate employability and career development incorporating applied psychology, business, education, and management. Two research questions are addressed: (1) How can literature addressing various forms of capital in the context of preparing university graduates for the labour market be integrated to offer a new ECGM?; (2) How can various actors, i.e. (a) students and graduates, (b) educators, (c) careers and employability professionals, and (d) graduate employers, operationalise the ECGM? The systematic literature review resulted in a final corpus of 94 manuscripts for qualitative content analysis. Findings led to the construction of a new ECGM comprising nine forms of employability capital (social capital, cultural capital, psychological capital, personal identity capital, health capital, scholastic capital, market-value capital, career identity capital, and economic capital), external factors, and personal outcomes. Twenty-three opportunities for the operationalisation of the ECGM were also identified. The theoretical and conceptual contribution comes from constructing a new ECGM to bridge the fields of graduate employability and career development in the context of preparing individuals for the transition from university into the labour market. The practical contribution comes from operationalising the ECGM at the education-employment nexus. Consequently, developing various forms of capital and an awareness of external factors and personal outcomes can improve students' and graduates' employability, benefitting all actors operating in a career ecosystem.

This study investigates career trajectory and work locations of doctoral students trained in Macao and analyses how their career paths are shaped by perceived macro-level factors. Respondents from four applied disciplinary areas were selected for semi-structured in-depth interviews. Research results show that doctoral students who graduated from Macao higher education institutions enjoy good career prospects in Mainland China. Their competitiveness in the research-related job market benefits from having a multi-level support system and a training mode that promotes government-university-industry collaboration. Policies and demand from industrial sectors are involved in students' learning experience through channels such as financial support, project collaboration and networks. Doctoral students in Macao are strategic planners and actors in leveraging their human capital. As Macao becomes an emerging destination for cultivating high-level research labour, findings from this study capture a model of human capital formation in China's cross-system context.

Purpose: This study is to examine and develop sector skills strategies and action plans for the textile and apparel (T&A) sector. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used a participatory action qualitative method anchored on the Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED) framework, utilising the workshop-based approach with 24 key stakeholders of the sector. Content analysis was used with the help of Nvivo software. Findings: The findings revealed that there are skills shortages, skills gaps, skills mismatches and skills diversification programmes available through higher education and work-based learning. Further, there are labour supply challenges such as national skills policy and strategy, government and stakeholder coordination, funding, relevance of curriculum and qualifications, access to practicals and the absence of a clear national vision for the sector. Research limitations/implications: This study possesses an inherent limitation in terms of generalising the findings derived from qualitative research. Originality/value: This research is among the first of its kind to assess skills needs and gaps through the lens of STED framework, which has been overlooked in previous literature. Importantly, this study provides vocational insights into skill needs in the sector.

Despite the increasing research attention on international graduates' employability and vocational development, most studies have focused on their employability in developed countries; little is known about their employability in developing countries such as China. In this qualitative study, 15 international graduates from two Chinese universities voluntarily participated in in-depth interviews to share their insights about how they negotiated employability in China. The study employed Bourdieu's cultural theory, Tomlinson's graduate capital model, and Pham's employability agency framework as complementary conceptual frameworks. The findings revealed that international graduates in China strategically developed various capital (e.g., human, social, identity, cultural, psychological, identity, and agentic) to navigate the Chinese labour market. To some extent, the role of these capitals in the Chinese context was distinct. This study suggests that different stakeholders should collaboratively support international students in China to develop and utilise various employability capital during and after their study programme.

The present paper is a comparative examination of three European Commission (EC) countries' primary and elementary education curricula with the European Commission's Communication and its consequences for curriculum skills relating to children's lives as adults and workers. It is a documentary analysis of secondary sources of the texts of the curricula. It emphasizes on the aims and objectives concerning skills required to be cultivated in students through the education curricula of European countries of Greece, Finland, and Denmark, as economically developed countries according to the World Bank (2019). According to the European Commission's Communication "Rethinking Education: investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes" (2012a), the European Commission's Communication "New Skills Agenda for Europe: Working together to strengthen human capital, employability and competitiveness" (2016) and the European Commission's Communication "Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 Resetting education and training for the digital age" (2020), they are compared with the curricula in terms of skills required for the labor market. The method that was used was the qualitative content analysis in the texts of the curricula based on the required skills. The results show that the texts of the curricula from Greece, Finland, and Denmark have common references with the aforementioned above European Commission's Communications. Regarding the content of the curricula, it is observed that the goals and aspirations are linked to the development of the personality and the cultivation of skills related to employability. The goal of the curricula is to cultivate skills in students that will be necessary for the children's lives as adults and workers. In the conclusions, it is stated that there is the intention and purpose of developing and cultivating skills based on the requirements of the labor market and the instrumentalization of these skills for the benefit of the economic framework not only for the researched countries but also on a wider scale.

The aim of the study is to substantiate methodological approaches to the agricultural educational program development on the basis of a modular-competence-based approach, which provides training for the experts of the agricultural industry, capable of implementing a federal scientific and technical program in the future for the development of agriculture in Russia, taking into account the requirements of professional standards. Professional and public accreditation of agricultural educational programs will allow for an external examination of the educational program implementation level and quality in accordance with approved professional standards and develop recommendations aimed at student training level improvement. The study defines the role of professional and public accreditation provision in the interaction between the labor market and the vocational education system. The authors substantiated the modular-competence-based approach to the development of educational programs that contributes to human capital quality improvement in agriculture. In this paper, an algorithm has been developed to expert training quality improvement. In general, the result of the work will contribute to the training of personnel for the industry and will ensure the achievement of a balance of qualifications between the labor market and agricultural education.

This study used the Survey of Earned Doctorates, World Bank economic data of the doctoral students' home country, and hierarchical linear modeling analysis to examine the effects of financial factors and home-country macroeconomic indicators on international doctoral students' labor market destinations. We found that wealth disparities and economic opportunities in the home country affect international doctoral student outcomes. Higher gross national income per capita was associated with a decreased likelihood of remaining in the United States, while higher unemployment rates in the home country significantly increased the likelihood of remaining in the United States. The study reveals a need to develop career services support for international doctoral students that are tailored to their needs as well as the need to internationalize the curriculum to support those who will eventually return to their home country.

This exploratory study examines academic and labor market risks associated with investments in higher education by synthesizing the literature regarding risky higher education choices and extending the research using the 2014 National Student Financial Wellness Study, a national sample of college students. Three phenomena are analyzed to support the notion that individuals may be making suboptimal human capital investment decisions: (a) cost-benefit errors; (b) unclear educational goals; and (c) increasing time-to-degree. The study examines which students are more likely to report that the cost of college did not influence their choice, that tuition is not a good investment, or that they expect to take additional time to complete their degree. Opportunities for practitioners to help clients navigate higher education investment decisions and opportunities for future research are discussed.

Links between Qatar's labor market and post-secondary education are not fully effective and often result in neglected or duplicated development of human capital. Therefore, most development efforts occur in isolation involving outmoded programs with many complacent faculty unaware of new technologies and developments relevant to labor market sectors. Analyses of secondary data from government departments and international studies were combined with a survey on "Improving and enriching the Human Capital of the State of Qatar through Identification and Development of 21st Century Skills". This explored perception of both employers and TVET program leaders toward the skills needed for economic and social development in a changing world by meeting human capital needs through 21st century skills. A total of 85 managers and professionals completed the survey, together with 35 TVET program leaders from one university and five government TVET institutions (the survey was adapted to fit the context of TVET institutions surveyed). Thirty-two of the industry managers and professionals were from Hydrocarbon and Energy, 26 from Built Environment and 27 from Banking & Finance sectors. Subsequently, 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted. Descriptive statistics using T-test and effect size for comparison, showed a major mismatch between perceptions of TVET program leaders and business & finance sector' managers and professionals in many aspects of 21st century skills requirements. These were mainly in social skills and some specific technology skills. Significantly, the study indicated weak links between employers and TVET institutions. To address these issues, minimizing the skills' mismatch can be achieved by placing greater emphasis on reforming the curricula of Qatar's TVET institutions, to facilitate faster transitions into the workplace.

Reverse transfer associate degrees are credentials retroactively awarded to current bachelor's degree seekers, combining four-year credits with credits previously earned at a community college. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we use a difference-in-difference design to compare students before and after receipt of a reverse transfer degree to similar students over time. We find reverse transfer degrees have little impact on students' academic outcomes (GPA, credits, and bachelor's degree attainment) and labor market outcomes (employment and earnings). Our findings contrast with existing descriptive work reporting large benefits of such degrees, due to our methodological improvements and more robust data. The null effect on earnings suggests that returns to an associate degree are driven by human capital gains rather than signaling in the reverse transfer student population. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED627111.]

Purpose: This paper explores the economic and social effects of human capital investment in the 20th century. As well as drawing on census data and statistical yearbooks in Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the paper develops its argument by an intersection of scholarly work in sociology, economics and the history of education to consider the effects of increased human capital investment on economic growth but also on the experiences of childhood, work discipline and the present climate crisis. Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers the implications of what economic historian Claudia Goldin has described as the "human capital century" for the history of school and university education. By reconsidering education in the settler colonies, especially Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, as "stimulus", this helps explain key aspects of contemporary human capital investment, which the paper argues should be understood as constituted by children's and young people's free labour at school, university and across the economy. Findings: This research argues that children's and young people's free labour, performed in educational institutions, constitutes a large portion of Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand's national investment in human capital. At key points, this investment has acted as an economic stimulus, promoting surges of profitability. The effects were not confined to young people. Systematised, educational expansion also became the foundation of environmental degradation, labour market exploitation and a relentless increase in service-sector productivity that is worn on professional bodies. Productivity increases have been associated with reduced professional autonomy as a managerial class coerced professionals into working harder, though often under the guise of working "smarter" -- a fiction that encouraged or coerced even greater personal investment in collective human capital. This investment of personal time, effort and selfhood by children and the professionals they grew into can thus be seen, in Marxian terms, as a crucial vector of capitalist exploitation in the 20th century. Practical implications: The paper concludes by suggesting that a reduction of managerial influence in educational settings would improve learner and professional autonomy with improved labour and environmental conditions. Originality/value: The paper makes a unique contribution to the history of education by exploring education as stimulus as a key component of education's role in 20th and 21st century capitalism. It interrogates exploitative aspects of human capital investment, especially in the midst of environmental catastrophe and the recent COVID crisis.

Today, one of the long-term development goals of Azerbaijan is to train competitive human capital in higher education in the 21st century in accordance with the modern requirements of the labour market. In this context, the modernisation of the quality assurance system in higher education in Azerbaijan is one of the priority issues. The article analyses the issues of quality assurance in the legal framework of Azerbaijan, the "Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area" and current legislation and makes relevant recommendations to improve regulations. The modernisation of quality assurance at foreign universities is one of the current focus areas. In order to transform university graduates into internationally competitive human capital, to eliminate the difference between the professional qualifications offered by universities and the specialisations sought, the article offers theoretical and practical suggestions to universities to modernise quality assurance.

The study determined how employers' assessment of graduates' utilization of employability skills influences organizational growth and sustainable development in Nigeria. The design was ex-post facto with a population of 42 registered business organisations in Nigeria. Thirty-five organisation employers and 492 graduate employees were sampled through multistage techniques. Data were collected with "Employers' Assessment of Graduates' Employability Skills Utilization Questionnaire" (EAGESUQ) and "Sustainable Development University Education for Graduates' Skills Acquisition Questionnaire (SUDUEFGSAQ). Validated EAGESAQ and SUDUEFGSAQ were tested for reliability using Cronbach alpha statistic yielded reliability coefficients of 0.94 and 0.89 respectively. Inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The findings and conclusion showed that graduates skills, gender and fields of specialization significantly influence organization growth and sustainable development in Nigeria. Recommendations include: government agencies need to review university programmes and curriculum in line with labour market required skills; they need to monitor the implementation of internship for students and on-the-job-training of new graduate employees.

This paper argues that micro-credentials are gig credentials for the gig economy. Micro-credentials are short competency-based industry-aligned units of learning, while the gig economy comprises contingent work by individual 'suppliers'. Both can be facilitated by (often the same) digital platforms, and both are underpinned by social relations of precariousness in the labour market and in society. They are mutually reinforcing and each has the potential to amplify the other. Rather than presenting new opportunities for social inclusion and access to education, they contribute to the privatisation of education by unbundling the curriculum and blurring the line between public and private provision in higher education. They accelerate the transfer of the costs of employment preparation, induction, and progression from governments and employers to individuals. Micro-credentials contribute to 'disciplining' higher education in two ways: first by building tighter links between higher education and workplace requirements (rather than whole occupations), and through ensuring universities are more 'responsive' to employer demands in a competitive market crowded with other types of providers. Instead of micro-credentials, progressive, democratic societies should seek to ensure that all members of society have access to a meaningful qualification that has value in the labour market and in society more broadly, and as a bridge to further education. This is a broader vision of education in which the purpose of education is to prepare individuals to live lives they have reason to value, and not just in the specifics required of particular jobs.

Higher education has complex roles in society, the economy, and politics; it helps to transmit culture, transfer knowledge, and develop the personality of citizens. This diversity of roles is confronted with the limited resources that are related to the sources of financing, that is, students and their families, the national government, and local authorities, among others. The discussions related to the role of universities concern the economy of knowledge and the digital tools influencing education. The specific case of St. Petersburg universities simultaneously represents the impact of the deep socio-political transition from Soviet society to the liberal principles of a market economy, including the perception of higher education institutions as service sector companies. The services allowed by universities include research and training; however, from the consumer point of view, universities should create specific value: the increase of the intellectual components of human capital. These complex functions are interconnected. During 2017--2018, a survey in St. Petersburg was organised to ascertain the opinion of students, professors, and employers on the quality of education. The results of the survey demonstrate the impact of the exaggerated implementation of the liberal principles on education, both positive and negative. The positive effect is the renewing of content and innovative training techniques due to competition among universities. The negative impacts include the preference for popular disciplines and the opportunistic behavior of students that lose their passion for acquiring knowledge and choose instead the passive attitude of consumers of a competitive service. They are less interested in the sphere of their studies, in searching for a job, in the interaction with other social and economic actors, and even in the research and education options presented by the universities.

Following human capital theory, the investment in education should result in wage gains over time and increased productivity. Thuswise, some governments became more active in stimulating citizens into pursuing advanced degrees by introducing loans and other support schemes. British policy makers went further by first launching graduate loans for students pursuing Master degrees followed by announcing the loan scheme for PhD students to start in 2018. Will keeping more young professionals away from joining the labour force and increasing their educational debt pay off in economic terms for those students? This systematic literature review is motivated by the possible contradiction in governmental objective to increase the number of doctoral students, while their ability to find the jobs which fit their qualifications and payment expectations might be questioned. This review shows that systematic data on doctoral graduates and the labour market is quite limited, with employers outside academia mostly being unsatisfied with lack of 'commercial awareness', flexibility and adaptivity to new environments in young PhD degree holders. At the same time the role of the degree and expectations coming with it are changing and doctorate students are expected not only to produce a thesis, but to teach, publish papers and develop transferable skills.

We explore the impact of excess credits, defined as additional credit hours accumulated by students beyond the required number of hours, on labor market outcomes. We consider whether additional credits have any impact on the labor market outcomes of job mismatch and income. Data are taken from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) study, a longitudinal survey of graduating seniors drawn from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. Our results did not find any evidence of excess credits having any influence on job mismatch or income, suggesting that excess credits are neither harmful nor beneficial from a job market perspective. This may be due to the general noisiness of the measure, as excess credits can arise from numerous, contrary circumstances.

Do employers prioritize university prestige above an applicant's skills in the hiring process? To distinguish between the effect of human capital in the hiring process from the effect of the name of the graduating university--while controlling for networking effects--2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to IT and accounting jobs in the US, UK, and Australia. The resumes belonged to fictitious citizens, both female and male. For each sector of the labor market, two resumes were designed. One resume had a high skills match with the generic requirements of entry level jobs in each sector. A second resume had a low skills match with the same requirements. For each country, one high-ranked university and one non-high-ranked university were selected to signal prestige. The name of the graduating university and the sex of the applicant were randomly assigned on otherwise identical resumes. High skills match applications were 79 percent more likely to receive a callback than low skills match applications. University prestige and sex were not statistically significant predictors of callbacks. These findings suggest that human capital, and not university prestige, predicts callback outcomes in skill intensive sectors of the labor market for entry-level applicants with a bachelor's degree.

Each year, students graduate from schools, colleges and universities. Some find a job quickly -- others do not. Delays in the transition from education to work have been associated with scarring effects and detrimental effects on later employment and career progression. Increasing numbers of graduates from universities and colleges are descendants of immigrants. The labour market performance of children of immigrants arguably constitutes an important test of the long-term structural integration of ethnic minorities. Using comprehensive Norwegian administrative data on complete birth cohorts, we apply discrete time hazard regression to examine ethnic inequalities in relative transition rates from education to work, comparing majority graduates to 10 groups of Norwegian-born second-generation immigrants from the 1973 to 1997 birth cohorts (N = 964,450 persons with 1,901,171 person-years). We find clear evidence of ethnic inequalities in transition rates, where children of immigrants or African origin fare the worst. Second, the overall patterns mostly remain unaffected when adjusted for factors like educational field, marriage status, children and parental background. Third, we find that the minority disadvantages are less marked at lower levels of education for some groups.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate graduate employer perceptions of determining factors in recruitment decisions and their preferred use of recruitment channels. This study drew on the employability capitals model to interpret findings and identify ways to better prepare higher education students for recruitment and selection. This is particularly important in declining graduate labour markets, further weakened by COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: This study gathered data from surveying 183 Australian employers from different organisational settings. Responses were analysed using descriptive and multivariate techniques, the latter exploring variations by role type, sector and organisation size. Findings: Findings reaffirmed the criticality of students having the right disposition and demonstrating professional capabilities during recruitment, highlighting the value of building cultural and human capital during university years. Recruitment channels that require students to mobilise their identity and social capital were prioritised, particularly among private sector organisations. Work-based internships/placements were considered important for identifying graduate talent and developing strong industry-educator partnerships, needed for building networks between students and employers. Originality/value: This study provides valuable insights into determinants of graduate recruitment decision-making from the employer perspective. These highlight to students the important role of capitals, and how they can be developed to optimise recruitment success. This study presents practical strategies for universities to build their students' human, social, cultural and identity capital. Findings on the prioritisation of recruitment channels among graduate employers from different sectors will enable students and universities to better prepare for future recruitment. It emphasises that student engagement with employability-related activities is a critical resource for an effective transition to the workplace.

Employability is a set of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that make an individual adapt to changes in the labour market. This study applies 'Human Capital Theory' (HCT) and the 'theory of Interrole Learning Transfer' (ILT) to examine factors which affect the attitudes, motivations and actions of learners towards their future employability. A qualitative approach enabled in-depth interviews with 36 participants drawn from academics, students, company managers and policymakers. Our findings reveal that there is a disconnect between the teaching of theoretical knowledge and employability skills. Higher education (HE) is presented to Nigerians as if young people must achieve a degree certificate to have a chance to succeed in life. Also, it appears that students have a notion that the certificate is enough to evidence ability. The findings lead to the development of 'employability model' which proposes that individual orientation and institutional factors determine the enactment of employability skills.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to examine the initial policies developed by Australian, Canadian, English, German, Greek and Irish governments to limit the spread of the virus. This has revealed governments' conceptualisation of the early childhood sector and its workforce. This paper argues that neoliberal ideology and neoliberal imaginaries have already influenced the early childhood sector globally. During the pandemic, the choices that governments made at the outset of the pandemic has allowed their priorities and underlying ideology to be more transparent. Using an ethnographic methodology, early childhood researchers from each of the six countries, examined their individual governments policy responses and the effects on the early childhood sector during its initial months (between March and June 2020). The authors consider the extent to which this may have implications for the sector in how it should continue its ongoing pursuit of professionalisation of the sector.

This study proposes a holistic model of perceived employability in university students, covering the following five areas: human capital, social capital, cultural capital, individual attributes and behaviours, and contextual factors. Three studies comprising five experts and 1,088 students were performed. Through these studies, the psychometric properties of the scales used were verified, and the proposed theoretical structural model was estimated. The results confirm that university student networks, labour market and self-confidence in job searching and university are the most important factors in graduates' perception of employability.

Using mixed methods research approach, this study explores the employment experiences of the Kazakhstani graduates with international human capital in the domestic labour market. Human and social capital theories and Spence's signalling theory are utilised to explain and consider how investment into and internationalisation of those capitals and signalling attributes contribute to the graduates' after-return labour market participation scenarios. The findings indicate that international education significantly improves graduate employability and widens opportunities. However, the limited options and capacity of the local labour market as well as the attitudinal differences between the Soviet era senior administration and foreign-educated graduates represent serious challenges.

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature. Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000-2020. Findings: Through the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent's effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit. Research limitations/implications: The authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon. Originality/value: The scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.

Purpose: This article provides empirical validation of the Graduate Capital Model, adopted at a UK Russell Group University as a tool to analyse and support the career preparedness of both undergraduates and postgraduate students. An overview of employability capitals and how the development of these will potentially result in positive employment outcomes is explored. We describe the development of a psychometric tool "the Graduate Capital Scale" that seeks to operationalize these capitals. We then draw on data to establish the factor structure, reliability and validity of the tool. Design/methodology/approach: This paper introduces a new psychometric instrument, called the "Graduate Capital Scale"; this self-reflective tool aligns closely with the five capitals within the Graduate Capital Model (Tomlinson, 2017) and has been designed for higher education students to self-assess their confidence in transitioning to the graduate labour market. Findings: Based on a sample of 1,501 students across data collection waves, the findings from the psychometric scale show good factor reliability and validity for the constructs central to the overarching Graduate Capital Model. Within each of the component of the model, high factors loading emerged for a range of scale items, including subject-related skills, social networking, perceived job market fit and engagement with extra-curricula activities. Few gender differences emerged across the constructs. Research limitations/implications: The research was confined to a specific English university comprised of mainly academically high-achieving and higher socio-economic students. However, there is significant scope for the model and related scale tool to be applied to diverse student groups given its wholistic nature. Practical implications: The scale has considerable potential to be incorporated into careers practices and also embedded into course programmes as it aligns with a range of related learning outcomes. There is significant scope for this approach to complement a range of pedagogical and practical career interventions, including: self-reflective tools within tutorials; measures of learning gain for specific interventions such as careers coaching and mentoring; and as a personal reflective tool in careers guidance. Social implications: The approach developed through this employability tool has scope to be used for diverse graduate groups, including those with lower levels of career confidence, preparedness and insight and including those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Originality/value: This paper has introduced and demonstrated the validity of a practical careers and employability development tool that has significant practical applicability for students, graduates and practitioners. Moreover, this scale supports a pre-existing conceptually driven model and has demonstrated a clear alignment between theory and practice in the area of graduate employability.

It is well-known that engineering is a key profession for both economic and social development. This is as true for China as it is for other countries which are in the process of development. However, what are the economic incentives for young people to enter the profession today? Currently, there are many studies of the rate of return to educational investment, but recent empirical studies of the rate of return to educational investment for engineers are uncommon. This is true generally, but especially for contemporary China. This is because it is difficult to obtain high-quality and representative sample data about engineers. This paper uses the data of the Chinese Family Panel Studies, 2010, and applies a Mincerian income function to estimate the rate of return to education for engineers who work in the private sector in urban China. The empirical results show that the rate of return for engineers is 12.3%, which is an impressive figure. It is in accordance with the current supply and demand of the Chinese labour market which requires many engineers to carry out construction and maintenance projects given China's continuing industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation. However, the empirical results also show that compared with the rate of return to education for professional and technical personnel who are employed in business economics and finance, the rate of return for engineers is significantly lower. This may explain why in China today the attraction of engineering education for talented young people is declining, with more and more students choosing business economics and finance as their first choices of major and career, rather than engineering as in the past.

The contribution of university education to sustainable development of society has become one of the most important activities of higher education institutions. After 55 years of independence, it is time to take a critical look at the role of university education in nation building in Kenya. Since independence, access and difficulties of maintaining standards of quality and efficiency with marginal available resources--more recently highlighted by a commission on higher education report--have been some of the key challenges in university education and these have impacted on the sector's contribution to the country's development. Embracing secondary data sources, the purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution that university institutions have played in Kenyan development using a framework of human capital theory. The paper concludes that long-term economic growth can only be achieved through investment in a highly skilled workforce and university education is particularly critical in this regard.