Skill Endowment Through Vocational Education and Training Programmes and Early Career Mobility

This article addresses inequalities in short‐ and medium‐term career outcomes of workers with different vocational education training (VET) programmes during the early career. In particular, we examine how degree specificity VET affects occupational status mobility throughout individuals’ careers, a topic that has hitherto received little attention. We adopt life course perspective combine an individual‐level theoretical approach (human capital signalling theory) institutional approach. The former focuses on skill acquisition across latter emphasises allocation to programme influences amount types skills they acquire. multinomial logistic regression analyses are based combination detailed curricula‐based occupation‐level data from Transitions From Education Employment (TREE) longitudinal dataset. results show, firstly, labour market at beginning consequences for later outcomes. Second, practical occupation‐specific facilitate stability entry, while general knowledge decisive long‐term upward mobility.