A Second Chance? Labor Market Returns to Adult Education Using School Reforms

Patrick Bennett, Richard Blundell () and Kjell G Salvanes

No 2020-058, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Roughly one third of a cohort drop out of high school across OECD countries, and developing effective tools to address prime-aged high school dropouts is a key policy question. We leverage high quality Norwegian register data, and for identification we exploit reforms enabling access to high school for adults above the age of 25. The paper finds that considerable increases in high school completion and beyond among women lead to higher earnings, increased employment, and decreased fertility. As male education remains unchanged by the reforms, later life education reduces the pre-existing gender earnings gap by a considerable fraction.

Keywords: adult education; returns to education; fertility; gender inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I26 I28 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ltv
Note: FI, MIP
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Bennet ... returns-adult-ed.pdf First version, August 3, 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A Second Chance? Labor Market Returns to Adult Education Using School Reforms (2020)
Working Paper: A Second Chance? Labor Market Returns to Adult Education Using School Reforms (2020)
Working Paper: A second chance? Labor market returns to adult education using school reforms (2020)
Working Paper: A Second Chance? Labor Market Returns to Adult Education Using School Reforms (2020)
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