ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Work, Employment and Organizations
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1680077
The dynamic impact of higher education on youth employment opportunities and quality:An empirical analysis based on age-period-cohort models
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xi'an Physical Education University, Xi'an, China
- 2Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
- 3Tianjin University of Sport, Tianjin, China
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The impact of higher education on youth employment is dynamic, shaped by both micro-level life-course trajectories and macro-level societal processes. Drawing on eight waves of data from the China Social Survey (CSS) covering 2006–2021, this study applies a Hierarchical Age–Period– Cohort Cross-Classified Random Effects Model (HAPC-CCREM) to assess how higher education influences young people's employment outcomes in the labor market. The analysis considers two dimensions of employment performance—opportunities and quality—while also mapping dynamic trends across age, period, and cohort. The findings reveal that higher education exerts significant effects on youth employment in all three dimensions. Age: For higher-education youth, both employment opportunities and quality follow an inverted U-shaped curve, whereas for non-higher-education youth both indicators increase gradually. Period: Employment opportunities for both groups have undergone cyclical declines since 2006, but the decrease has been less steep for higher-education graduates, who have consistently outperformed their non-higher-education peers. In terms of employment quality, higher-education graduates show a fluctuating upward trend, while non-graduates maintain relatively stable levels. Cohort: Among higher-education cohorts, the effect on both employment opportunities and quality displays a "gradual rise–sharp decline" trajectory, whereas among non-higher-education cohorts, the pattern is one of "moderate fluctuations–mild improvement."
Keywords: higher education1, employment opportunities2, employment quality3, dynamictrends4, HAPC5, CSS6
Received: 05 Aug 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, GUO, Li and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: JIRU GUO, 2311113001@sus.edu.cn
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