Expanding education raises the qualification demanded for a given job faster than the job's content changes, so credentials rise without skills doing so.
Collins argued in 1979 that credentials function largely as a screening and closure device rather than as evidence of trained capability. As supply grows, the threshold rises to preserve the signal, so each generation must go further to reach the same position. It predicts the observed decoupling between years of schooling and job content.
In practice
- A role that required school-leaving qualifications in 1980 requires a degree now, and the work is unchanged.
- A profession that adds a master's requirement has raised its entry cost without altering its practice.
- Standing
- Compare social closure, of which this is a mechanism, and effectively maintained inequality.
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- Theories of teaching, and what schools are for