General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle

Ludger Wößmann, Eric Hanushek and Lei Zhang
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ludger Woessmann

VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: 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.

JEL-codes: I20 J24 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle (2017)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle (2017)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle (2015)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle (2011)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle (2011)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle (2011)
Working Paper: General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Life-Cycle (2011)
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