Massification and privatization of higher education in East Asia: Critical reflections on graduate employment from the sociological and political economic perspectives

East Asia has experienced a significant increase in higher education enrollment in recent decades, the main consequence of which was the oversupply of university graduates for local and global labor markets. Intensified competition and mismatched employability further created new challenges for university graduates. This study critically examines how the massification and privatization of higher education in East Asia affect graduate employment in a country. Additionally, this study challenges human capital theory for overpromising that individual investment in higher education would result in prosperous career development and advanced social mobility for graduates. This research used a comparative data analysis of graduate employment in selected East Asian countries/regions to highlight the impact of intergenerational inequality on graduate employment and social mobility. Moreover, this study argues that an improved understanding of graduate employment can be achieved by considering the broad political economic perspective when analyzing intergenerational inequality and youth employment dilemmas.