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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In the present paper, the current status and future of recurrent education in Japan were studied and analyzed from the viewpoint of the function and role of specialized education.
The term “specialized education” is usually used in a rather wide meaning. However, here it is limited to its particular aspect centering around the problem of special training school or a subject the author has long been concerned with.
Being an effective educational institution after the secondary school, the special training school has played a great role in the specialized and professional education. Particularly, its special course is called as the special traing college, where people learn for practical experts in a variety of fields. In comparison with the university and junior college, the special training college has a comparatively free organization of curriculum and it practises an education closely related to the profession and well adpated to the actual life. Therefore, many adults as well as youth actually attend the special training college. Thus, this college is positively made use of as an institution of the recurrent education.
Based on the actual status and its recognition, problems were discussed as to what function and role the special education plays in the recurrent education.
As features of the modern age, there is a tendency of more specialization and subdivision of profession and job due to changes in the structure of industry. Thus, various practical specialists have been and are being trained. In this case, there is a problem that compared to the traditional profession, practical specialists in new fields may be in an unfavorable condition and limited in opportunities in continuing their professional learning after graduation from school, namely, that there may be differences in opportunities of receiving the recurrent education between different species of profession. To correct such differences, policies were devised and proposed. They include improvements of the professional status through the professional organization, practical use and investigation of the coordinating function of the government in its administration and policy selection, investigation of the professional qualification system in the ideal form, and, further, development of the ability and skill of experts and practical experts by providing more opportunities of study and training and by making use of the existing educational and training institutions.

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　女性が各キャリア段階において形成した人的資本は，必ずしも再就職の際に有効に機能しないことが先行研究において示されてきた．しかし，いまだ未検証な人的資本の指標として職業資格があり，人的資本理論やシグナリング理論に基づいて考えると，その独自の効果が期待される．そこで本稿では，再就職移行に際して職業資格とその取得時期が他の人的資本の指標とは異なる独自の効果をもちうるのか検証した．

　データは2005年SSM調査を使用し，そのうち結婚・出産を機に離職した女性の再就職移行に関して，離散時間ハザードモデルを用いて推定を行った．主な結果として，（1）入職以前の人的資本の指標となる最終学歴は効果をもたないこと（2）入職後の人的資本の指標となる職業経験の効果は一貫したものではないこと（3）入職後に職業資格を取得した者は再就職に移行しやすく，そのほとんどが20年以内に再就職していること（4）入職後の職業資格の効果は，他の人的資本の指標となる変数を統制したうえでも独自の効果をもつことが示された．この結果，職業資格には女性の再就職移行において，特定の職業との結びつきを高める可能性や，採用側との情報の非対称性を埋め合わせる効果が期待される．

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