Both the human capital theory and the contemporary discussion of the employability approach the actual impacts of the education capital on the productive practices of people in a capitalist socioeconomic society. The main stream of this relationship tends to emphasize the education effects in the income received by the workers, as well as their chances to get into and remain in the work market. The present paper statistically analyses the relationships between education, wages and employability under the perspective of a structural equation model, in order to compare and to contrast both theories, using real data. Rais dataset, with information of the subjects working in the formal work market in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro in 1999 was used to test the model. The results revealed that the impact of the education on wages and employability should be regarded with some caution.
human capital; employability; work market; structural equation model
