The influence of further education on occupational mobility in Switzerland

Further education attainment is an important part of the work life, but its impact on occupational achievement is far less well understood than basic education. In this study, we examine the influence of further education on occupational upward and downward mobility and gender differences in the inf luence. Further, we address selection bias involved in this process. The sa mple for the study includes both men and women from the 1945-51 and 1959-61 birth cohorts in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. We employ Cox's proportional hazards model to estimate the effects of three different types of further education on the rate of upward and downward mobility, independ ent of basic education, work-related individual attributes, and labour-mark et factors. The findings show that further education aimed at a formal cred ential, such as advanced training and retraining, increases chances for upw ard mobility. We found that the association between credential-oriented fur ther education and upward mobility is stronger for women than for men. It r eflects greater selectivity among female participants. We also found that f urther education participation has only a moderate negative effect on downw ard mobility. Basic education remains an effective measure against downward mobility.