Levelling and inequality in the professional insertion of higher education graduates

Abstract

Based on a representative sample of graduates from two Portuguese public universities, this article seeks to analyse whether the tendencies towards homogenisation fostered by possession of an academic degree and academic socialisation notably mitigate inequality reproduction dynamics when graduates enter occupational structures. The authors observe that an academic trajectory has a clear levelling effect, as expressed in the fact that graduates with different social origins who take the same courses also secure similar positions in the labour market. At the same time they demonstrate that social reproduction dynamics continue to manifest themselves, operating to a large extent via the unequal distribution of individuals from different places in the social structure among the different academic areas.