This paper explores cross-national variations in the impact of education on labour market outcomes using the risk of unemployment and occupational status as the key dependent variables. The study applies a comparative perspective on eight EU countries (three from CEE), representing different relationships between the education system and the labour market with various degrees of inequality, welfare provisions and labour market flexibility. A temporal comparison investigates the influence of the 2008 economic crisis. The study employs data from the European Union Labour Force Survey 2007, 2009 and 2014. Binary and ordinary least squares regressions are the main analytical methods. Models are fitted to the pooled data and interactions are applied to elaborate on country and temporal variations. The analysis reveals the persistence of returns to school investments; the crisis exerts bigger risk and loss for the less educated. However, this impact is markedly shadowed by the institutional variation at the country level. High flexibility and low inequality could provide some defence, while corporatist features and employment protection decreased the crisis effects. Post-communist countries were hit harder but with a characteristic variance: Slovenia was less affected, Estonia recovered the crisis faster and Hungary was affected at most.

The school to work transition in Central and Eastern Europe is a highlighted research topic because of the market transformation. The article investigates graduates from tertiary education from the perspective of their human capital investments, labelled as 'double status position' when students study and work at the same time and acquire work experience during their studies. The article distinguishes two forms of this activity: study-related and non-study-related work. Data used in the article come from recently available data sets, which surveyed respondents who had graduated from tertiary education five years prior to the projects. A broad range of Central and Eastern European countries are analysed in this study. The data contain retrospective information on studies, work activities undertaken while studying, as well as on parental education. Two research questions are studied in the article. First, the salience of the double status position is compared. Second, the influence of work activity during study on entry into the labour force is investigated using two dependent variables: the length of time graduates needed to find a job and the quality of the first job in terms of a good match between education and work. Multivariate regression models are applied to study the research questions. Results reveal that the occurrence of double status positions for graduates is in line with institutional transformation, and with the deregulation of the tertiary education system and the labour market. The impact of the acquired work experience also varies by country and depends on institutional and individual features. © 2012 The Author 2012.