These days there seems to be a “qualification fad” with the publication of many books that encourage the obtainment of occupational qualifications and the trend in which university students attend vocational training school in addition to their university courses in order to get qualifications.
In Japan, it has been shown that there has been different access to social resources depending on socioeconomic status or educational career.Then does the obtainment of occupational qualifications result in the successful attainment of social status? If they do, in which strata does this occur? Or do these qualifications have no effect on one's social status? Using data from the 1995 SSM Survey, this paper investigates whether occupational qualifications increase an individual's chances of acquiring social resources, such as income and occupational prestige.
Independent of the factors of academic career or socioeconomic status, some analyses suggest that these qualifications are profitable for women but not for men.
This is partly because of the difference in jobs available to men and women. Although it is taken for granted that men should work, women have limited opportunities to get jobs. This difference between men and women also occurs due to the nature of the qualifications themselves. In other words, some of the qualifications are necessary for continuing to work in some “male-dominated” occupations, and thus, such qualifications do not have any effect on one's income or social status.

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