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While there is a rich literature on the school-to-work transition in developed countries, an equally robust literature is lacking for post-communist countries. We analyse the patterns of labour market entry of higher education graduates in several formerly communist countries by drawing on the HEGESCO data set, which provides information on the school-to-work transition of higher education graduates leaving education in 2002/2003 in four countries: Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia. The results of Cox and logistic regressions show multiple differences among these countries in the speed of labour market entry, stability of the first job and education-job match among graduates. It is argued that a large amount of the variation among countries in the school-to-work transition can be attributed to differences in labour market circumstances.

Innovation and knowledge-intensive economy are considered crucial for addressing challenges and opportunities currently faced by Europe. The present paper aims to provide inputs for building a long-term vision aiming to promote innovation and knowledge economy for fostering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. We analyze microdata from the 2016 Innobarometer “EU Business Innovation Trends” (Flash Eurobarometer 433), covering 14,112 companies from 30 countries in order to shed light on main drivers and results of business investments in innovation. We focus our analysis on high-tech industries and knowledge-intensive services. Additionally, expected positive impacts of innovation in knowledge-intensive sectors are explored in terms of job creation, digital economy, environment protection, health, transport, food quantity and quality, development of smart cities, etc. Our results are useful for designing an improved support for the emergence and impact of knowledge-intensive economy.

Education is a key factor that can contribute to the economic growth, supporting the social mobility and the living standard improvement. Both from the scientific point of view, as well as from the policy making process point of view, it is essential to know how individuals choose their educational path, in order to understand what is and can be the role of different educational routes in ensuring social mobility and improving standard of living. In this article we explore the factors that explain attitudes and decisions of individuals for vocational vs. general education in Romania. Our analysis is based on data from a national survey among adult Romanian population. Attitudes regarding the choice of vocational vs. general education are analysed by employing decision trees method in order to assess the extent to which vocational education is considered a valuable education path or an educational alternative for those with lower socio-economic background.

For many years, gender equality has been on the agenda of various stakeholders from different sectors of activity and from different levels of action. However, information regarding the participation of women to research and development remains scarce and insufficient for assessing the progress towards equality related goals in this area. This paper aims to explore the participation of women to the research & development sector in two selected European countries – Romania and Iceland. Thus, the present study is focused on the presence of women in a highly specialized sector that contributes to the creation of a competitive, knowledge-based society. Data on research and development personnel are analyzed from a comparative perspective in order to assess how Romania and Iceland perform in the field of gender equality in research and development sector. The findings of this paper show that women are still underrepresented in specific sectors of performance, as well as in some fields of science. Due to data lacking, analysis on the presence of women in management position in research and development couldn’t be performed. So, better and more comparable statistics on gender equality issues in science is needed for ensuring a more accurate image of women participation.

The attributes of globalization have underlined the ultimate reasoning process - the knowledge economy is driven by innovation, and the ICT phenomenon, while the successful finality of this new premise must be reduced to the measures a country is instituting, and to the capabilities and potential of private entities. The current regression analysis performed on the World Bank datasets on 11 countries from 4 continents managed to underline the correlations established between the expenditure in R&D as an innovation premise, and the potentially incentivized business sector toward developing new medium and high-tech products and services. Moreover, the study looked into the ICT sector and the extent to which the local governments are directing policies and funds to developing the former. The results are conclusive with the implementation of innovation policies, and the investment programs each country created for the optimization of the business performance and the development of the R&D sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary societies, education facilitates social mobility and well-being of individuals. According to human capital theory, people who invest in themselves through education and training have improved chances of getting better jobs and gaining higher income (Becker et al., 1990; Woodhall, 1987). This paper aims to examine the effects of educational attainment on financial well-being in Romanian context. We analyse statistical data from the World Values Survey Wave 7 (sub-sample for Romania) collected from 1257 subjects. By exploring the relation between educational attainment and financial well-being, our results are relevant for better understanding the mechanisms linking human capital accumulation to monetary benefits and how these mechanisms work in relation to various individual and contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus pandemic has affected millions of participants to education around the globe. School closure has been in the core of the preventive measures taken by authorities in order to limit COVID-19 spread. Resilience of the education systems in front of coronavirus crisis has relied on their capacity to continue education after the school closure. Home-schooling quickly has become a solution for many students. New tools of virtual education are being used by numerous teachers and students. The changes and shifts in education approach were more rapid and significant in pandemic times as ever. Education systems around the world have faced an unprecedented disruption. This paper argues that while the resilience of the education systems has relied extensively on virtual solutions, socio-economic disparities and digital gaps could widen educational inequalities. Statistical data are presented in order to shed light on the potential impacts on educational equality in times of COVID-19 pandemic. A more coherent and rapid response of educational authorities is required in Romania in order to tackle such effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]