The Situation of Industry and Loss of Interest in Science Education
Résumé
The case of Germany is taken as an example of cyclical variation in higher education enrolment in the sciences. The article argues that the mechanism underpinning these fluctuations is the cobweb model. This model establishes a recursive loop between trends in enrolments in a discipline and trends in the labour market associated with this discipline. The analysis highlights two conditions that are required for the model to apply: the elasticity of higher education capacity and the segmentation of the labour market.