IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v7y2019i3p202-223.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Vocational Education Give a Labour Market Advantage over the Whole Career? A Comparison of the United Kingdom and Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Maïlys Korber

    (Life Course and Inequality Research Centre, University of Lausanne, Switzerland / Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES, University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

Abstract

Research suggests that vocational education and training (VET) tends to reduce youth unemployment by providing them with specific skills, thus smoothing the transition from education to work. However, we still know relatively little aboutwhether vocational education provides higher employment rate and wages over the entire working trajectory than holders of lower education; after several years of experience, both groups may indeed have similar skills and thus similar situations in the labour market. We compare the situation in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, two countries that share a tradition of vocational education but differ in the specificity and standardisation of their VET system. Creating a pseudo-cohort with repeated rounds of the United Kingdom and Swiss labour force surveys, we use regression models and compare the employment rate and hourly wage of our two groups of interest: individuals with vocational education at the upper secondary level and individuals with no more than compulsory education. We find that VET graduates fare better in terms of both employment and wages over the whole career. This advantage is larger for women than men and, contrary to our hypothesis, larger in the United Kingdom than in Switzerland with respect to employment prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • Maïlys Korber, 2019. "Does Vocational Education Give a Labour Market Advantage over the Whole Career? A Comparison of the United Kingdom and Switzerland," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 202-223.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:202-223
    DOI: 10.17645/si.v7i3.2030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/2030
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/si.v7i3.2030?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric A. Hanushek & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann & Lei Zhang, 2017. "General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 48-87.
    2. Cörvers, F. & Heijke, J.A.M. & Kriechel, B. & Pfeifer, H., 2011. "High and steady or low and rising? : life cycle earnings patterns in vocational and general education," Research Memorandum 042, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    3. Paul Ryan, 2001. "The School-to-Work Transition: A Cross-National Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 34-92, March.
    4. By Barbara Mueller & Jürg Schweri, 2015. "How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1057-1077.
    5. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126.
    6. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Irene Kriesi & Juerg Schweri, 2019. "Types of Education, Achievement and Labour Market Integration over the Life Course," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 58-64.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maïlys Korber, 2019. "Does Vocational Education Give a Labour Market Advantage over the Whole Career? A Comparison of the United Kingdom and Switzerland," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 202-223.
    2. Hans Dietrich, 2013. "Youth unemployment in the period 2001–2010 and the European crisis – looking at the empirical evidence," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 19(3), pages 305-324, August.
    3. Eric A. Hanushek & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann & Lei Zhang, 2017. "General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 48-87.
    4. Juerg Schweri & Annina Eymann & Manuel Aepli, 2020. "Horizontal mismatch and vocational education," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(32), pages 3464-3478, June.
    5. Franziska Hampf & Ludger Woessmann, 2017. "Vocational vs. General Education and Employment over the Life Cycle: New Evidence from PIAAC," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(3), pages 255-269.
    6. Irene Kriesi & Juerg Schweri, 2019. "Types of Education, Achievement and Labour Market Integration over the Life Course," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 58-64.
    7. Irene Kriesi & Juerg Schweri, 2019. "Types of Education, Achievement and Labour Market Integration over the Life Course," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 58-64.
    8. Neyt, Brecht & Verhaest, Dieter & Baert, Stijn, 2020. "The impact of dual apprenticeship programmes on early labour market outcomes: A dynamic approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Dicks, Alexander & Künn-Nelen, Annemarie & Levels, Mark & Montizaan, Raymond, 2024. "Automation risks of vocational training programs and early careers in the Netherlands," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 67(4), pages 507-528.
    10. Ollikainen, Jani-Petteri, 2021. "Comprehensive school reform and labor market outcomes over the lifecycle: Evidence from Finland," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Maria Esther Oswald-Egg & Ursula Renold, 2019. "No Experience, No Employment: The Effect of Vocational Education and Training Work Experience on Labour Market Outcomes after Higher Education," KOF Working papers 19-469, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    12. Oswald-Egg, Maria Esther & Renold, Ursula, 2021. "No experience, no employment: The effect of vocational education and training work experience on labour market outcomes after higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Shaun M. Dougherty, 2018. "The Effect of Career and Technical Education on Human Capital Accumulation: Causal Evidence from Massachusetts," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 13(2), pages 119-148, Spring.
    14. Clemens Noelke & Daniel Horn, 2011. "Social Transformation and the Transition from Vocational Education to Work," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1105, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    15. Céline Gasquet & Valérie Roux, 2006. "Les sept premières années de vie active des jeunes non diplômés : la place des mesures publiques pour l'emploi," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 400(1), pages 17-43.
    16. Möller Joachim & Umkehrer Matthias, 2015. "Are there Long-Term Earnings Scars from Youth Unemployment in Germany?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(4-5), pages 474-498, August.
    17. Mr. Jose L. Torres, 2020. "Youth Unemployment in Uruguay," IMF Working Papers 2020/281, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Jhon James Mora & Juan Muro, 2007. "Diploma earning differences by gender in Colombia," Alcamentos 0802, Universidad de Alcalá, Departamento de Economía., revised 2008.
    19. Eggenberger, Christian & Rinawi, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2018. "Occupational specificity: A new measurement based on training curricula and its effect on labor market outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 97-107.
    20. Huzeyfe Torun & Semih Tumen, 2019. "Do vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1364-1388, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:202-223. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.