The Reserve Army of the Underemployed: II - The Role of Education

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Abstract
Throughout the industrialized world, governments are attempting to provide greater social equality through the expansion of access to edcation. In so doing, they have nurtured attitudes of “entitlement” to good jobs among those of high educational qualifications. Unhappily, no economic system appears capable of fully keeping pace with this new inflation in employment expetations of younger workers. Simply put, there are not enough good jobs for everyone who wants one and whose educational credentials say he or she deserves one. Perversity, then, the well-intentioned social and educational policies of the developed nations are engendering more and more frustration and low morale among underemployed workers. Underemployment—the chronic under-utilization of education, skills, and other human resources—thus becomes a chronic societal contradiction in advanced nations. There is growing evidence that this disjunction between educational opportunity and upper-grade jobs it beginning to create a series of potentially grave social, political, and economic problems. In last month's issue, I examined some of these new phenomena, such as increasing class conflict, Job dissatisfaction and credentialism, decreasing economic productivity, and dwindilng public support of education and its institutions. These problems have led to recognition in many nations that something must be done to bridge the gap between expectations and realities in industrial society In particular, it is frequently argued that ways must be found to provide greater complementarity between the learning and work aspects of life in order to realize such potentially conflictiong goals as extended opportunities for individual growth; increased social and economic productivity; and the provision of greater social justice, liberty, and equality. But how does society begin to develop policies for such a delicate tightrope act?

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