 The Mincer Human Capital Model in PakistanQaisar Abbas and James Foreman-Peck South Asia Economic Journal, 2008, vol. 9, issue 2, 435-462 Abstract: This article estimates and interprets returns to education for three sub–sectors of the labour market, by gender, in Pakistan, using the most recent data set of the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey, 2004–05. The results show two distinctive features of Pakistani education: the high apparent returns to female education outside agriculture and the remarkable increase of returns with successive levels of education, which are to be explained primarily by two departures from the basic Mincer model—generally poor quality primary schooling and family unwillingness to invest in female education because of a lack of earning opportunities. There is some signalling in Pakistani education investment, but the education is mainly a productivity–enhancing investment in human capital, according to a comparison of self–employed and paid employed earnings equations. Returns to the public spending of education are extremely high, suggesting considerable state underinvestment. The policy challenge is in the low wages and high education in the female paid employment sector, and the low participation rate. Keywords: Rates of Return; Gender; Occupation; Pakistan. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:soueco:v:9:y:2008:i:2:p:435-462 DOI: 10.1177/139156140800900209 Access Statistics for this article More articles in South Asia Economic Journal from Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.