Labor Market Effects on Dropping Out of High School: Variation by Gender, Race, and Employment Status

This research probes two questions regarding participation in alternative high school programs: Does participation reduce the likelihood of students dropping out? Does participation lead to enhanced experiences in the labor market after students leave school? Using the California subsample of the 1980 and 1982 High School and Beyond surveys (involving nearly 3,000 sophomores and 3,000 seniors), vocational education and participation in other alternatives are scrutinized. Our findings regarding the dropout-preventing effects of these programs are mixed: The assessment varies across different procedures used to control for prior propensity to dropout. Our findings for labor market effects are more definite. Participants in vocational and other alternative programs have generally higher employment rates and, for some, higher wages. Suggested extensions of this work are offered.

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The Labor Market Effects of Refugee Waves: Reconciling Conflicting Results

ILR Review ◽

10.1177/0019793918824597 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 72 (4) ◽

pp. 818-857 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Michael A. Clemens ◽

Jennifer Hunt

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Labor Market ◽

Current Population Survey ◽

Population Survey ◽

High School Education ◽

Endogenous Variable ◽

Racial Composition ◽

Compositional Change ◽

Market Effects ◽

The Impact

Studies have reached conflicting conclusions regarding the labor market effects of exogenous refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in Miami. The authors show that contradictory findings on the effects of the Mariel Boatlift can be explained by a large difference in the pre- and post-Boatlift racial composition in certain very small subsamples of workers in the Current Population Survey. This compositional change is specific to Miami and unrelated to the Boatlift. They also show that conflicting findings on the labor market effects of other important refugee waves are caused by spurious correlation in some analyses between the instrument and the endogenous variable, introduced by applying a common divisor to both. As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and it fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental effects on workers with less than a high school education.

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Labor Market Effects of High School Science Majors in a High Stem Economy

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3286167 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tarun Jain ◽

Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay ◽

Nishith Prakash ◽

Raghav Rakesh

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Labor Market ◽

School Science ◽

High School Science ◽

Science Majors ◽

Market Effects

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The Labor Market Effects of High School Athletic Participation

Journal of Sports Economics ◽

10.1177/1527002505279348 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 255-265 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Bradley T. Ewing

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Labor Market ◽

Athletic Participation ◽

Market Effects ◽

High School Athletic

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Dropping Out of High School: The Ideology of School and Work

Journal of Education ◽

10.1177/002205748316500304 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 165 (3) ◽

pp. 257-272 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Michelle Fine ◽

Pearl Rosenberg

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Labor Market ◽

High School Dropout ◽

Family Factors ◽

Educational Institutions ◽

Dropping Out ◽

Gender Biases ◽

Market Opportunities ◽

Race Ethnicity ◽

And Gender

This paper explores the tension between prevailing ideologies of the high school dropout as “loser” and data which indicate that many dropouts are highly motivated, intelligent, and critical of educational institutions and labor market opportunities. Attention is paid to who drops out, with a particular focus on gender, race/ethnicity, and class, and to how these dropouts are portrayed in social-science, popular, and teacher-training literature. It is concluded that explanations offered for the “tragedy of the dropouts” which isolate individual or family factors function to delegitimate dropouts' critique of schools and the labor market, bolster the image of education as the great equalizer, and deflect attention away from race, class, and gender biases which operate in schools and at work.

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