Clark (1996), interpreting differentiation and diversity as basic features of higher education, emphasizes that the expansion of higher education – and the differentiation process that accompanies it – is, in essence, a reaction to the change of the higher education environment. According to Clark, out of these external changes of the environment the growth of the heterogeneity of the student population, the appearance of new field of studies and the strengthening role of the labor market are the most important. Our investigation is rooted in these determinants. The massification of higher education resulted in basic changes, one of them is the growing heterogeneity of students with regard to their knowledge, social status, motivation and needs. As the composition of the student population was changing, the system of education was undergoing a differentiation process too, whereby several new institutions and programmes were generated (Huisman 1995). Meanwhile, differentiation and heterogeneity has become a dominant nature of the labor market as well. This clearly defines the changing characteristics of the transition between the higher educational system and the labor market as well as the employability of graduates (Allen – van der Velden 2007). Our study focuses on the measurement of occupational heterogeneity which is considered as a distinctive character of a study program in our approach. Our procedure goes back to an earlier analysis of the labour market entry of graduates in Hungary where the skill requirements of graduate jobs were investigated from the perspective of their required qualifications with the same approach based on the proportion of ISCO codes (Róbert – Veroszta 2014). It also refers to the work by Elias and Purcell (2013) which aimed to create a classification for analysis of the relationship between higher education and employment involving the Standard Classification of Occupations (SOC 2010).

Our research aims to characterize higher educational study fields based on the output indicator of occupational heterogeneity. The term of horizontal matching between study fields and graduate jobs provides a framework for the interpretation of our results which is – according to or approach – a non-hierarchical concept. This includes the assumption that the output of study fields can be described more reliable way with identifying occupational diversity than merely to measure the existence of a mismatch between occupation and education. Along this idea we intend to realize the difference between study fields by identifiying patterns of graduates occupational titles. We can conclude our research question as examining the possibility of conceptualizing and operationalizing horizontal matching as a non-hierarchical phenomenon.

Allen, J.–van der Velden, R. (eds.) (2007) The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society: General Results of the REFLEX-project. Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market, Maastricht University, The Netherland Clark, B. R. (1996) Diversification of Higher Education: Viability and Change. In.: Meek, V. L.–Goedegebuure, L.–Kivinen, O.–Rinne, R. (eds.) The Mockers and Mocked: Comparative Perspectives on Differentiation. Convergence and Diversity in Higher Education. Pergamon Press, Oxford Elias, P.-Purcell, K. (2013) Classifying graduate occupations for the knowledge society. Working Paper no.5, Futuretrack, Higher Education Careers Services Unit. Huisman, J. (1995) Differentiation, Diversity and Dependency in Higher Education. Utrecht, Lemma Róbert, P. – Veroszta, Zs. (2014) Measuring graduate occupations and their skill requirements in Hungary. Paper presented at ‘Ingrid Expert workshop New skills new jobs: Tools for harmonising the measurement of occupations’ 10-12 February 2014, AIAS, Amsterdam