Should States Allow Early School Enrollment? An Analysis of Individuals' Long-Term Labor Market Effects

Katja Görlitz, Pascal Heß () and Marcus Tamm
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Pascal Heß: Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg

No 17303, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: This study provides a policy evaluation of laws allowing early school enrollment of children, i.e., enrollment before the official school starting age. It investigates the effects of early enrollment on educational attainment, wages and employment. While the school starting age is usually determined by children's date of birth and legal cutoffs, some German states allowed early enrollment in some years. Exploiting state and cohort variation, the results show that male early enrollees attain fewer years of schooling, enter the labor market earlier and have a larger labor market attachment at around age 16. Positive wage effects persist until approximately age 35. Results for women roughly resemble those for men but they are less convincingly estimated.

Keywords: school starting age; employment; early school entry; early enrollment policy; wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 J21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2024-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-inv, nep-ipr, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Empirical Economics , 2025, 68, 2383–2411

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Related works:
Journal Article: Should states allow early school enrollment? An analysis of individuals’ long-term labor market effects (2025)
Working Paper: Should states allow early school enrollment? An analysis of individuals' long-term labor market effects (2024)
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