Loafing or Learning? The Demand for Informal Education

Arbeitspapier

Using detailed time use data for Germany a positive correlation is found between the level of schooling education and time investments in informal education. Two hypotheses explain this observation: (1) highly educated people have higher opportunity costs of their leisure time and thus prefer leisure activities which add to their market productivity (wage effect) and (2) highly educated people have a preference for ?high quality? leisure (taste effect). The demand for informal education is derived in a household production model accounting for both explanations. An empirical investigation finds evidence for both effects with the taste effect being the more important effect. Highly educated people accumulate human capital through their specific leisure time use. This increases the skill-gap between higher and lower educated people.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 859

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Time Allocation and Labor Supply ; Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
• Subject: informal education ; lifelong learning ; time allocation ; household production ; censored LAD ; Bildungsverhalten ; Lebensverlauf ; Hochqualifizierte Arbeitskräfte ; Zeitallokation ; Bildung ; Nachfrage ; Deutschland ; Lebenslanges Lernen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fahr, René
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2003

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20102
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET