Evaluating Graduate Employment Quality through AHP-Entropy and Fuzzy Synthesis: Evidence from Lingang New Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone

This study develops a comprehensive evaluation framework for university graduate employment quality, encompassing five dimensions—career development, job stability, compensation and benefits, job satisfaction, and skill alignment—supported by 25 specific indicators. By integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the entropy weight method, and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, an empirical analysis was conducted on a sample of 167 graduates employed by enterprises in the Lingang area. The results indicate a moderately high overall employment quality score of 3.6729 (on a 5-point scale). Among the primary dimensions, job stability (3.8835) and job satisfaction (3.8413) received the highest scores, followed by compensation and benefits (3.7024), career development (3.5637), and skill alignment (3.5239). Furthermore, employment quality was significantly higher for graduates in leading industries such as artificial intelligence and integrated circuits, as well as those in R&D positions. A comparison across educational levels revealed that employment quality scores followed a descending order of doctoral > master’s > associate > bachelor’s degrees. Based on these findings, targeted optimization recommendations are proposed for government, universities, and enterprises.