scholarly journals The effectiveness of vocational education in promoting equity and occupational mobility amongst young people

2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (180) ◽  
pp. 7-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Bartlett

This paper reviews current knowledge about the impact of vocational education and training on the labor market outcomes for young people in advanced market economies, and asks whether the results can be extrapolated to countries in the Western Balkans and the EU neighborhood. It draws four main policy conclusions. First, in transition countries, specialized vocational education should not be replaced by streaming or tracking within comprehensive school systems or integrated into general education programmes. Abandoning effective vocational schooling may worsen the labor market outcomes for the less able and disadvantaged young people. Inadequate vocational school systems should be strengthened, while ensuring effective pathways to higher levels of education. Second, while apprenticeship systems enable lower ability students and minorities to access the labor market, they may lock women into traditional female occupations. Well-organized and resourced school-based vocational education may be preferred by women who feel they could benefit from them, and may furthermore reduce school drop-out rates. Third, occupational mobility can be improved by effective school-based vocational education. If returns to such education are sufficiently high, they can incentives mobility. While for developed economies there is little difference in rates of return between general and vocational education, in transition economies, returns to vocational education are higher than returns to general education. Fourth, while occupational mobility is needed for countries undergoing structural change, it should be noted that too much mobility can also be harmful to the skill retention, especially for women. Special attention should therefore be given to providing complementary opportunities for retraining and for lifelong learning to all workers, but especially to women, to encourage and support the desired degree of mobility in the labor market.

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric A. Hanushek ◽  
Guido Schwerdt ◽  
Ludger Woessmann ◽  
Lei Zhang

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Lindeboom ◽  
Petter Lundborg ◽  
Bas van der Klaauw

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Albert DiPrete ◽  
Joanna Chae

A large literature in both sociology and political science has theorized about the importance of skill formation systems for macroeconomic performance, for the transition from school to work, and for labor market outcomes. However, consensus on how countries fit into these theoretical groupings has been difficult, and empirical evidence that these groupings matter has been elusive. Focusing on labor market outcomes across twenty-one European countries, this paper demonstrates that the strength of linkage between specific educational outcomes and occupational destinations is an important source of these institutional effects. Stronger linkage is generally associated with higher relative earnings and greater chances of employment, though heterogeneity exists both across age and gender groupings and across educational levels. Country-level structure matters because it is related to the local linkage strength of pathways, even as there is considerable heterogeneity within countries in the coherence of pathways from educational outcomes to occupations. Pathway effects clearly matter, particularly in how they shape the consequences of working in an occupation that is well matched to one's educational level and field of study. The strongest evidence for macro-structural effects concerns the impact of macro-structure on the earnings gap between well-matched and not-well matched workers with non-tertiary and with upper tertiary education. The findings suggest that policies to improve labor market outcomes do not require wholesale transformations of a country's skill formation system, but instead can focus on improving pathway coherence one pathway at a time.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (Special Edition) ◽  
pp. 93-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monazza Aslam ◽  
Shenila Rawal

This paper investigates the economic (i.e., labor market) outcomes of “training” for individuals in Pakistan. The labor market benefits of general education have been relatively well explored in the literature and specifically in Pakistan. They point to the benefits of education accruing both from education or skills that promote a person’s entry into more lucrative occupations and from raising earnings within any given occupation. This research delves into another angle by investigating the role, if any, of acquired “training“—technical, vocational, apprenticeship, or on-thejob— and its impact through both channels of effect on economic wellbeing. This is done using data from a unique, purpose-designed survey of more than 1,000 households in Pakistan, collected in 2007. Multinomial logit estimates of occupational attainment show how training determines occupational choice. In addition, we estimate the returns to schooling and to training separately for men and women. The results show that, while training significantly improves women’s chances of entering self-employment and wage work (as well as the more “lucrative” occupations), only wage-working women benefit from improved earnings through the training they have acquired. On the other hand, men who have acquired skills this way benefit through an improved probability of being self-employed and earning higher returns within that occupation.


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