The employability of university graduates has become a growing research field in the last few years, due to the continuous questioning of the ratio between university and the labor market, as well as the growing number of university graduates in the European context (Rose, 1994; Verniéres, 1997; Vincens, 1997, Labbé e Abhervé, 2005). The dismissal of both university graduates and senior staff, in the nineties, and the decrease of job offers for those who have a university degree have originated reflections about the difficulty of employability of university graduates. Until now several research works have showed that university graduates have an advantage in employability over those not having a university degree. In Portugal there is a positive ratio between level of education and employability, a factor that denies the idea of uselessness of getting university degrees (Alves, N., 2008; Marques e Alves, M., 2010; Chaves, 2010; Rodrigues, Barroso e Caetano, 2010).

University graduates are an heterogeneous group, as they differ in their employability trajectory, according to resources that they may mobilize and academical level; according to their differences, their trajectories might be linear or ruled by precariousness and/or unemployment.  

According to data surveyed in the «Graduates’ transition to work trajectories - objective and subjective relations with work» (PTDC/CS-SOC/104744/2008) project, the big majority of university graduates - 2004/2005 -  (88%) from two of the major Portuguese Universities  - Universidade Nova de Lisboa e Universidade de Lisboa - is in the labour market regardless of gender. But in this issue, one may find specificities in the professional trajectories if we pay attention to their objective positions in the labor market. Regarding  the subjective relation with work, both male and female university graduates similarly evaluate the favorable input of their professional activity, the importance of payed work in both life and labor values. So, the symbolical values of both male and female university graduates merge, albeit one needs to look more closely in order to see if there is the same adequacy or inadequacy between both aspirations and professional achievements in the practical and fulfillment level  (Crompton e Lyonette; Torres et al., 2004; Corrigal & Konrad, 2006; Guerreiro et al., 2009; Halford et all, 2006).

One possible approach might be the gender issue, i.e., whether having a university degree softens or not the existing gender inequalities in labor? If the majority of the university graduates is in the labor market, one finds differences in their trajectories, time to get a job, institutional place, type of employment contract, salaries and working hours per week. So, if having a university degree contributes toward to reinforce a strongest presence of the gender parity model over the importance of labor in life, in what measure is this gender parity model really paritarian in both professional practices and achievements of university graduates?

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