The Positional Value of Education and its Effect on General and Technical Fields of Education: Educational Expansion and Occupational Returns to Education in Spain

Using European Union Labour Force Survey data from 1998 to 2004, this research explores how the decrease in the positional value of education associated with educational expansion has affected occupational returns to education in Spain. The positional value of education is measured by taking the percentage of labour market entrants with at least the same level of education as the respondent for every year of entry into the labour market since 1959. We control for the effects of the economic cycle, of economic sectors, and of the different educational reforms that have affected nine successive cohorts of labour market entrants. Our analysis reveals, first, that a higher percentage of entrants with at least the same credential as the respondent is associated with lower occupational prestige; second, we find that this loss of occupational prestige is higher for general than for technical education, supporting the hypothesis that technical fields of education transmit a clearer signal of workers' skills to employers. The exception is health and welfare fields in higher education. The possibility that educational or occupational segregation by gender explains the relative occupational loss in this particular field is not supported by our findings.