Graduate Underemployment in Beijing and Tokyo Comparative Analysis of Higher Education and Labor Market Structures (2020-2024)

Graduate underemployment has become an increasingly salient issue in major East Asian cities, particularly Beijing and Tokyo, amid rapid economic restructuring and the massification of higher education. This study conducts a comparative analysis of graduate underemployment in these two metropolitan labour markets, focusing on how institutional, structural, and economic factors shape employment quality and early career outcomes.Although both cities function as centres of political authority, innovation, and knowledge production, they represent contrasting labour market paradigms. Beijing is characterised by a market-driven system marked by rapid expansion of higher education, skill mismatch, and graduate oversupply, resulting in employment insecurity, low wages, and difficulties in securing positions aligned with qualifications. In contrast, Tokyo’s labour market remains strongly influenced by institutional norms such as new graduate recruitment, seniority-based promotion, and enterprise-specific training, while increasingly exhibiting labour market dualisation between regular and non-regular employment. This structure generates a distinct form of underemployment characterised by limited mobility, constrained career development, and wage stagnation among young workers.The study adopts a qualitative comparative design using secondary data from government statistics, educational authorities, and large-scale employment surveys in China and Japan. The findings highlight underemployment as a multidimensional phenomenon embedded in educational policy, demographic change, cultural expectations, and institutional structures. Despite divergent labour market models, both cities face converging challenges in providing graduates with secure, high-quality, and meaningful employment, underscoring the need for policy coordination between higher education and labour market institutions.