The forthcoming article “Great expectations: The effect of unmet labor market expectations after higher education on ideology” by Loreto Cox is summarized by the author below.
Higher education has massively expanded around the world—graduation rates in the OECD countries increased from 31% in 1995 to 49% in 2017 (OECD 2017). On average, higher education graduates earn 56% more than high school graduates (OECD 2017). Yet, there is great variation in outcomes and many graduates benefit less than they expected (or not at all) from their education. Teichler (2007) found that 19% of European college graduates find their work situation four years after graduation worse than expected. Data collected for the current study shows that in Chile, one year after graduation, 65% of graduates earn less than they expected when they finished their studies.
What are the political consequences of these unmet expectations? After years of investing effort and money, how does realizing that the labor market does not value their studies as expected affect graduates’ political stances? The effects of unmet expectations on graduates’ political behavior have received little scholarly attention. Expectations play a fundamental role in individual satisfaction and are likely to matter in higher education.
This paper focuses on the effect of the gap between expected and actual outcomes from higher education on ideology regarding government vs. individual responsibility. I study the case of Chile, which has experienced one of the world’s greatest expansions of higher education enrollment since 1990. My research strategy relies on two different empirical methods: a survey experiment and a panel analysis, which produce consistent results. I use a large sample and novel two-wave panel with an embedded experiment that I designed and implemented with the collaboration of 49 higher education institutions, which together enroll 72% of the country’s undergraduates. The panel follows students as they enter the labor market, surveying 14,233 higher education students or recent graduates around the time of graduation in 2016 and administering a follow-up survey to 3,948 of them one year later.
In the experiment, subjects were asked how much they expect to earn after graduation and then half of them randomly received information on the average labor outcomes of past graduates of their institution who were awarded the same degree, based on administrative data. Larger gaps between respondents’ expectations and past graduates’ outcomes resulted in more pro-government ideology. The analysis of the respondents’ actual gaps after one year yields similar results. Both sets of results show stronger effects for unmet expectations than for exceeded expectations, in line with loss aversion. The consistent experimental and panel results appear to come from a reduction in perceptions of social mobility: unmet expectations erode perceived social mobility, which in turn implies a pro-government, leftward shift.
Theoretically, this finding adds a new, previously understudied dimension to the long-standing association between material conditions and ideology: the role of expectations. It may also help explain the politicization of higher education and the emergence of protests among the young and educated, who often promote left-wing ideologies in Chile and elsewhere.
About the Author: Loreto Cox is an Assistant Professor at the Escuela de Gobierno, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Their research “Great expectations: The effect of unmet labor market expectations after higher education on ideology” is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science.
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