Graduates in graduate jobs? A comparison between younger and older graduates from higher ed-ucation in Portugal

Graduates from tertiary education transformed the Portuguese labour markets in the recent decades. Private sector employees holding a higher education (HE) certificate ramped up from 8.5% in 2002 to 19.8% in 2017. However, in the same period the wage of HE graduates aged 24-28 plunged from 39% to 35% compared to graduates aged 54-58. Based on Quadros de Pessoal, an annual survey on Portuguese employers and employees, this paper explores what factors justify the declining returns to education for younger HE graduates. Besides taking into consideration employment quality, including employment and contractual conditions, the analysis accounts for work quality. A match with the US O*Net classification of occupations allows capturing the nature of tasks performed by older and younger graduates, thus measuring the graduateness of occupations. The results show that change in the occupation graduateness of younger HE graduates is a positive and significant determinant of change in relative wages