There are considerable differences in the relations between education and labor among societies. General arguments that overlook such differences may lead not only to a mistaken understanding of both education and labor within the society in question, but also to detrimental policies. In order to grasp such differences, this paper reviews the recent evolution of studies on “Varieties of Capitalism (VoC)”, focusing on the issue of skill formation.

 An epochal study on VoC was the book edited by Hall and Soskice (2001), which posited the binary concepts of Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs) and Liberal Market Economies (LMEs). In particular, the chapter titled “Social Protection and Skill Formation” authored by Estevez-Abe et al. attracted wide academic attention because it clearly presented the correspondence between the types of social protections and skill profiles in advanced societies. Japan is characterized by high employment protection, low unemployment protection and the predominance of firm-specific skills. This chapter, however, has some limitations including the overrating of the importance of firm-specific skills.

 Subsequent studies on VoC have developed in two directions: one is the increased sophistication of grouping of societies utilizing various methods of quantitative analysis and the other is inquiries into the origins and turning-points of the characteristic features of one or a few societies through historical investigation. The most recent research trends in VoC are the integration of these two streams on the one hand, and a focus on the viewpoint of partisan politics on the other.

 In the development of these VoC studies, the Japanese characteristics have been drawn as follows. Skill formation in Japan has been characterized by its segmentation within each firm, lacking the state-based vocational education and training (VET) for industry-specific and job-specific skills which have been proved to be conditions for vital economic performance and social equality. Moreover, in recent years, VET within Japanese firms is declining, with a wide gap of opportunity between regular and non-regular workers.

 Based on such an understanding, this paper attempts an empirical analysis to elucidate the features of the relations between education and labor in the Japan of recent years, using the data from the OECD Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The results imply that Japanese society fails to use its excessively high standard of general skills to bring about either high productivity or social equality. This means that the Japanese model of skill formation, which received high praise in 1970s and 1980s, has already failed to function.

 The conclusion is that Japan should overcome its peculiarities and dysfunctions concerning the relations between education and labor, or the skill formation system. Although VoC Studies offer various suggestions in regard to this problem, a more thorough understanding of actualities in various societies is needed.

 The ever changing and unpredictable knowledge-based society has emerged due to the accelerated development of science and information technology. In the new economy and society, human capital to produce innovation and creativity is a vital foundation for economic and societal success. To meet the need for enhanced human capital, defining, assessing and developing competencies as indicators of human capital are crucial terrain for designing educational reforms as national strategies for an economically competitive world. This leads to worldwide trends toward competency-based-education reform movements. The purpose of this study is to explore how the concept of competencies has evolved over time, especially in the OECD Indicators of Education Systems (INES) project, to cope with the social and personal needs of the knowledge-based economy and society.

 First, the paradigm shift in the understanding of employability is discussed through an analysis of societal change from an industrial society to a knowledge-based society. Second, the conceptual change in literacy is reviewed by analyzing its newly articulated definition and information process framework in the Young Adult Literacy Survey in the US. Third, the evolution from literacy to competencies is explored by looking at the historical progress of the theoretical and conceptual understanding of competencies in the OECD INES project. Fourth, the historical development of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study is reviewed by focusing on its major characteristics as well as the development of assessment regarding problem-solving abilities. Lastly, the paper discusses the pros and cons of competencies-based educational reform, and presents their implications for creating authentic learning for global citizenship without succumbing to the limited economic argument of human capital development.

 It is well known that the transition from university to the labor market was smoothly articulated until the early 1990s. University students were able to receive an unofficial job offer before graduation. However, owing to the collapse of the economic bubble in 1992 and subsequent chronic deflation over 20 years, and to the rapid increase of enrollment led by deregulation of the Standards for Establishment of Universities, a serious problem of credential inflation has been produced.

 As a result, based on reports by the Central Council for Education, MEXT began to recommend the trainability of students and promotion of career education at individual universities. Taking this into account, the purpose of this paper is to examine why and to what extent employment opportunities, including those for new graduates, are becoming harder to find, and then to examine how the ‘quality' of matching between job and students/employees affects prospective acquisition and non-monetary rewards when a recession hits.

 Using the School Basic Survey (MEXT) and Basic Survey on Wage Structure (MHLW), this study first investigates whether demand and supply variables affected the employment rate from 1970 to 2015. Second, it estimates the effect of the wages of workers in their 50s and the average relative wage of college graduates on the relative ratio of new graduates to evaluate ‘replacement employment' and a ‘replacement effect' which predicts that aging of the workforce contributes to restricting the employment of university graduates.

 Third, this paper employs an event-history analysis to examine the job searching process after the Lehman crash in 2008 by using the follow-up survey of High School Student Careers conducted in Dec. 2009, and also examines the effect of unwilling employment on the display of new graduates' vocational ability by using a survey of University Education and University Graduates.

 The main findings are as follows. (a) Results using time-series regression analysis and Chow tests show that 1993 was the turning point in structural change of the HE system. The coefficients which affect the employment rate at the second stage (1993-2015) are even larger and statistically significant than the first stage (1970-1992). This result provides evidence that both the credential inflation after the early 1990's and a decline in the quality of graduates lowered the employment rate of new graduates.

 (b) After 1993, structural change also occurred in the internal labor market. Due to the increasing middle-aged to elderly graduate male workforce, companies began to refrain from employing university graduates. (c) Motivation of students as well as bachelor's degrees from high-rank universities increased the hazard ratio for receiving an unofficial job offer, but experiences of internships and career education do not show significant impact. (d) Students with high achievement evaluate their prospective employer poorly, having lowered ‘reservation wages' to receive an unofficial offer as soon as possible. (e) Unwilling employment in tough-entry jobs continues to affect the negative impact on new graduates' self-evaluation of their ability, among males. Thus, the implications of these findings do not only promote (re)employment support but also raise the question of who set the ‘opportunity trap' which produced income disparity, and the historical process by which social equity was driven away.

 Since the end of 1999, ‘career education’ has been implemented in schools in Japan. At first, ‘career education’ started as a reform of ‘career guidance’, so as to improve the connection between school education and working life.

 However, because of the publication of the ‘Youth Independence and Challenge Plan’ on June 11^th 2003, the characteristics of ‘career education’ have been revamped as a piece of the youth support policy of the Japanese Government. As well, in the course of the implementation of ‘career education’ as part of the youth support policy, not only MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) but also MHLW (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare) and METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) have been involved in the policy-making process of ‘career education.’ Several efforts were tried as a field-crossing policy. Viewed from one side, ‘career education’ was an educational policy, and viewed from other aspects, it looked like a policy about labor or an economic policy.

 A few years later, a report entitled ‘Concerning the stance of career education and vocational education in Japanese schools’ was published by the Central Council for Education on January 31^st 2011. Thereafter, ‘career education’ approached vocational education, and widened its field to higher education.

 ‘Career education’ as implemented in schools in contemporary Japan is highly complex, has a variety of content, and is implemented in several different grades. In order to grasp this complexity, this paper tries to clarify the details of ‘career education policy’ in contemporary Japan, by focusing on the connections among actors. Concretely, the paper uses the viewpoint of ‘issue network’ theory, part of the ‘policy network’ theory. In order to show the details of ‘career education’, this paper uses the ‘White Papers’ from Ministries in Japan.

 Through the analysis of this paper, the detailed path of ‘career education’ in Japan for about these twenty years becomes clear. At first, ‘career education’ was an issue for MEXT, implemented only through ‘career guidance’ in junior and senior high schools. However, after the publication of the ‘Youth Independence and Challenge Plan’, ‘career education’ became an issue for MEXT, MHLW and METI. Non-profit organizations and companies also became actors in ‘career education’ policy. At that time, ‘entrepreneurship education’ also consisted of ‘career education.’

 After that, METI in particular became less involved with ‘career education’ policy for a few years. However, due to the start of the ‘Special Section about Career Education and Vocational Education’ in the Central Council for Education, the field of ‘career education’ was widened to higher education, and the connections among MEXT, MHLW and METI were also strengthened. This paper shows the path of the connections among actors of ‘career education’ in this way.

 The objective of this paper is to reveal the reasons and process for the transformation of “labor/vocation” in general education by analyzing the development of career guidance in France. It is our intention to gain a relative outlook with which to reconsider the relationship between education and labor/vocation in Japan by investigating French phenomena with such social structures as “civil society,” “qualification society,” “immigrant society,” and “global society.”

 The mission of schools according to an individual career development perspective is transition support, but a tension has been maintained at the curriculum and practical level between social transition support for citizen development and vocational transition support for worker development. Nonetheless, during the Third Republic period, vocational guidance within the elementary school curriculum was initiated as a part of national education. However, beginning in the 1920s, vocational guidance was gradually separated from the education field because of the rise of the diagnostic approach and the development of specialized agencies. With length of schooling prolonged after the war, the gap between social transition support and vocational transition support widened decisively. Instead of teachers, professional staff conducted career guidance outside the formal curriculum.

 Ever since the 1980s, the necessity for professional transition support of the qualification system and increased immigration triggered a comeback in incorporating an educational approach in the curriculum. However, the goal of this shift was to increase acquisition of professional qualifications among the poor. In addition, it met resistance from teachers who adhered to traditional intellectualism. Therefore, it was practiced only around the fringes of the curriculum within specialty areas.

 The New Fundamental Law of Education, established in 2013, was implemented to change a situation that had lasted for over 20 years. The newly founded measures “individual paths of information, guidance, and discovery in the field of economy and employment” (PIIODMEP: parcours individuel d'information, d'orientation et de découverte du monde économique et professionnel) established goals to promote the knowledge and competency required in vocational society in various subjects at the request of financial circles, which stressed the importance of developing a global workforce. However, changing the general education curriculum because of external pressure from corporations risks producing serious friction. Therefore, it is ideal to accomplish integration with intellectualism and avoid definitive conflicts (i.e., “questioning the significance of subjects”). On the other hand, there have been increasing assertions that career guidance must contribute to not only vocational transition but also social transition.

 In the end, the status of labor/vocation in general education depends on definitions of the roles of schools and teachers in a diverse society with complex characteristics. If the coexistence of both social transition support and vocational transition support is required, it is unavoidable that labor/vocation will be included in subject areas. Recapturing labor/vocation within the context of social transition will be a good starting point.

 In contemporary Japan, vocational education has been made light of, and public vocational education programs have been curtailed. But youth employment problems are becoming serious, and this has led to discussion on the necessity of the expansion of public vocational education programs. In this discussion, we have to bear in mind the problems relating to the publicness of vocational education.

 In order to clarify the problems relating to the publicness of vocational education, this article examines the formation of the public vocational education system in the United States through the “vocational education movement” from 1906 and the passage of the “Smith-Hughes Act” (1917), the first law on federal aid to vocational education.

 Part of the historical background of the vocational education movement was the “retardation” (delayed promotion) of public school pupils. This related to the problems of children of the “new immigrants”, i.e. immigrants from Southern or Eastern European countries. Another factor was the “decline” of apprenticeship and the conflicts on the training of skilled workers between employers and labor unions. With reference to the latter, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had different views on vocational education.

 The National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE), which was founded in1906, played a central role in the vocational education movement, and formed a consensus between NAM and AFL. It formulated a plan for a vocational education system to be established at the national level.

 The plan proposed by the NSPIE was adopted in the public vocational education system established by the Smith-Hughes Act. We can identify the publicness in vocational education in this system.

 First, the publicness of the vocational education established by the “Smith-Hughes Act” was maintained by its contribution to the common interests of all U. S. citizens, including not only employers but also employees and the children of the “new immigrants”.

 Second, this system assured universal access to vocational education. In this way, a vocational education system with publicness was created at the national level by this law. This meant that federal aid, i.e. expenditure of public funds, was justified by the fact that vocational education system with publicness was created nationally.

 When we discuss how to organize the public vocational education in Japan, we have to learn the lessons from the case of the United States discussed above, and bear in mind the publicness of vocational education, such as the common interests of society, universal access to vocational education, and so on.