Dr. Jessica Ordemann

Ageism in universities—meaning unequal treatment based on (older) age—is rarely addressed in higher education research. Yet with increasingly age-diverse student populations, older students may face discrimination for defying chrononormative expectations. Using data from the 2021 German Student Survey (N = 4,811; 300 students aged 30+), this research note identifies six forms of ageism. Logistic regression shows older students more often feel excluded or disregarded, but less often report unwelcome sexual remarks. Findings point to the need for policy action and greater scholarly attention to ageism in higher education.

This paper investigates the relationship between age and attaining a tenured position in academia. Following considerations about ageism towards doctoral graduates who were 40 years and older upon attaining a PhD and Robert K. Merton’s idea of cumulative advantages in academic careers, we differentiate between biological and academic age. We test the relationships and the resources accumulated behind the latter using data from the DZHW PhD Panel 2014. Applying piecewise constant exponential estimations and an entropy balancing, we find that PhDs aged 40+ experience a significantly positive effect on attaining a professorship at a university of applied science or receiving tenure as a postdoctoral researcher.

This paper investigates the relationship between age and attaining a tenured position in academia (postdoctoral researcher or professorship at a university of applied sciences or university). Following considerations about ageism towards doctoral graduates who were 40 years and older (40+) upon attaining a PhD and Robert K. Merton’s idea of cumulative advantages in academic careers (Matthew-Effect), we differentiate between biological and academic age. We test the relationships and the resources accumulated behind the latter using data from the DZHW PhD Panel 2014. Applying piecewise constant exponential estimations and an entropy balancing, we find that PhDs aged 40+ experience a significantly positive effect on attaining a professorship.

This article explores the income of higher education graduates who have also completed vocational and educational training. I use data from a linked data set of the student cohort SC5 of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), NEPS-SC5-ADIAB. The sample contains 3483 direct qualifiers, 1002 dual qualifiers with and 213 without Abitur. Longitudinal and pooled Poisson regressions are estimated to explore the income trajectories within the careers of dual qualifiers and for comparison with direct qualifiers. The results are ambiguous—from an intragenerational perspective only dual qualifiers without Abitur and a master’s degree earn more after studying. Measured against direct qualifiers ...

This paper focuses on dual qualifications (vocational and academic) and on how they affect social disparities in the probability of going to university. We analyze data from the DZHW Panel Study of School Leavers with a Higher Education Entrance Qualification 2012 to assess whether students find their way into academia via alternative pathways (vocational training) and whether this reduces existing social disparities in their likelihood of studying. This approach allows us to look at the educational pathways and detours to higher education over a more extended time than has been done in earlier studies and to highlight the effect of the timing of vocational training. On the one hand, our results confirm earlier findings ...

Individual educational and life paths are far more diverse today than is often assumed. Many paths with and without a university entrance qualification lead to higher education at different points in time. Diversity persists in higher education and beyond. Students have different backgrounds, change their course of study, interrupt their studies, or drop out. The current findings in this anthology impressively explore this diversity, from the paths to a degree program to the labor market.

Educational and employment careers do not always follow a straight line, as the nine chapters of this volume demonstrate. The chapters cover various topics related to access to higher education and transition to the labour market. They address the direct and indirect pathways to higher education, the potential complexity of the decision-making involved, and possible returns to the multiple educational pathways. The variety of educational trajectories, the focus of the volume, has gained importance in empirical educational research, not least because there are now rich longitudinal data sets such as the DZHW Panel Study of School Leavers or the National Education Panel (NEPS). Only by monitoring individuals over an extended period ...

Providing access to higher education and establishing a conducive framework for lifelong learning are important goals of the European Higher Education Area. In the D-A-CH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), the group of “non-traditional students” includes graduates of technical and vocational training without a school-based university entrance qualification, employees, family workers and “learners in later life”. Based on current data, and operating from the perspective of diversity and inequality theory, the papers in this issue examine university access regulations, students’ time budgets, the effects of care responsibility, and student dropouts, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This paper studies the evolution of three higher education wage differentials from 1996 to 2019 in Germany. We distinguish between degrees from academic universities, degrees from universities of applied sciences, and the master craftsman\craftswoman certificate. The educational reference category is a standard degree within the German vocational education and training system. Based on samples of male and female workers from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), regression methods show that all three educational wage differentials in 2019 exceeded the ones in 1996. However, workers graduating from universities experienced an inverse u-shape pattern with a maximum of about 0.5 log points around 2012....