The paper proposes an empirical examination of the consequences of educational expansion and reform in four European countries in terms of school-leavers' labour market chances. The empirical analyses focus on the returns to higher education on the one side and vocational qualification as compared to general education on the other. We concentrate on social class position as a major indicator of labour market related returns to education. Returns to education are measured in two ways: first, in absolute terms by taking the percentage among single educational groups that reaches a specified class position and second, in relative terms by relating the chances of a single educational group to the chances of another group. This is done on the basis of outflow-ratios and odds ratios derived from multinomial logistic regression. The absolute and relative chances are then compared over time and between the countries.