A paradigm shift in the dialectical relationship between higher education and the labour market: reconstructing human capital, value, and purposeful work

Abstract

This article analyses how the relationship between higher education and the labour market can be (re)articulated during times of recent economic and social transformation. We argue that there has been a gradual reframing of employability and HE outcomes from technicist and utilitarian perspectives, often inspired by classical human capital theory, towards relational understandings that include interactive signalling between employers and graduates, as well as the role of capital and identity formation. Many of the understandings of higher education’s role in the labour market elide contextual and structural challenges that impact how the supply of and demand for graduates is regulated. The paper applies the New Human Capital approach for understanding the supply of skilled labour and its effective realisation at the demand side, including concerns over labour quality, value and purpose. This further entails a fundamental retooling in our understanding of higher education’s role in meeting economic goals and the labour market’s capacity for enabling the realisation of graduates’ potential for meaningful labour. This raises wider policy and practical implications for how universities and employers may better interact and facilitating sustainable relationships between graduates and employers.

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ORCID for Michael Tomlinson: orcid.org/0000-0002-1057-5188

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