Graduate employability is an economic concept that strives to link higher education and employment. Economics of education and labour market theories contribute to its definition and provide arguments on its drivers and barriers. However, available studies have focused on human capital theory, which addresses the resources with which graduates should be endowed but overlooks the insights from other theories. This paper not only presents a more comprehensive picture of employability based on economic literature, but also confronts economic-grounded arguments with academic research from other social sciences. It examines screening, signalling, and matching arguments that unveil concepts and factors affecting employability. On the other hand, it adds social and personal constraints that are neglected in the economic literature, notably social and cultural capital that impact access to and the benefits of higher education. The notion of contingent employability is suggested to bring all these factors together.

中文翻译：

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通过经济理论重新审视就业能力的概念：贡献、局限性和政策影响

毕业生就业能力是一个致力于将高等教育与就业联系起来的经济概念。教育经济学和劳动力市场理论有助于其定义，并就其驱动因素和障碍提供论据。然而，现有的研究集中于人力资本理论，该理论解决了应赋予毕业生的资源，但忽略了其他理论的见解。本文不仅基于经济文献更全面地描绘了就业能力，而且还通过其他社会科学的学术研究来对抗以经济为基础的论点。它检查筛选、信号传递和匹配论点，揭示影响就业能力的概念和因素。另一方面，它增加了经济文献中被忽视的社会和个人约束，尤其是社会和文化资本，影响高等教育的获取和收益。建议使用或有就业能力的概念将所有这些因素结合在一起。