General education, vocational education, and labor-market outcomes over the life-cycle

Arbeitspapier

Policy debates about the balance of vocational and general education programs focus on the school-to-work transition. But with rapid technological change, gains in youth employment from vocational education may be offset by less adaptability and thus diminished employment later in life. To test our main hypothesis that any relative labor-market advantage of vocational education decreases with age, we employ a difference-in-differences approach that compares employment rates across different ages for people with general and vocational education. Using micro data for 18 countries from the International Adult Literacy Survey, we find strong support for the existence of such a trade-off, which is most pronounced in countries emphasizing apprenticeship programs. Results are robust to accounting for ability patterns and to propensity-score matching.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 3614

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Education and Research Institutions: General
• Subject: vocational education ; apprenticeship ; employment ; wages ; life-cycle ; adult education ; International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hanushek, Eric A. ; Woessmann, Ludger ; Zhang, Lei
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/52431
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET