IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jhucap/doi10.1086-690234.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Labor Market Effects of Academic and Vocational Education over the Life Cycle: Evidence Based on a British Cohort

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgio Brunello
  • Lorenzo Rocco

Abstract

Several commentators have argued that the short-term advantage of vocational versus academic education, which is a smoother school-to-work transition, trades off with long-term disadvantages, which are lower employment and/or lower wages. Using data based on the careers of individuals born in the United Kingdom in 1958, we find evidence of a trade-off, but only for real wages and only for the group with lower vocational education. These results are confirmed when the careers of individuals born in 1970 are examined. The presence of a trade-off does not imply, however, that individuals with vocational education have lower long-term utility.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2017. "The Labor Market Effects of Academic and Vocational Education over the Life Cycle: Evidence Based on a British Cohort," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(1), pages 106-166.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/690234
    DOI: 10.1086/690234
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/690234
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/690234
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/690234?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ian Walker & Yu Zhu, 2008. "The College Wage Premium and the Expansion of Higher Education in the UK," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 695-709, December.
    2. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    3. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    4. Steven Mcintosh, 2006. "Further Analysis of the Returns to Academic and Vocational Qualifications," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(2), pages 225-251, April.
    5. Peter Robinson, 1997. "The Myth of Parity of Esteem: Earnings and Qualifications," CEP Discussion Papers dp0354, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Oosterbeek, Hessel & Webbink, Dinand, 2007. "Wage effects of an extra year of basic vocational education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 408-419, August.
    7. Joseph G. Altonji & Erica Blom & Costas Meghir, 2012. "Heterogeneity in Human Capital Investments: High School Curriculum, College Major, and Careers," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 185-223, July.
    8. Blundell, Richard, et al, 2000. "The Returns to Higher Education in Britain: Evidence from a British Cohort," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(461), pages 82-99, February.
    9. Caroline Hall, 2012. "The Effects of Reducing Tracking in Upper Secondary School: Evidence from a Large-Scale Pilot Scheme," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 237-269.
    10. Dirk Krueger & Krishna B. Kumar, 2004. "Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US--Europe Growth Differences?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 167-207, June.
    11. Josef Fersterer & Jörn‐Steffen Pischke & Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer, 2008. "Returns to Apprenticeship Training in Austria: Evidence from Failed Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 733-753, December.
    12. Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2015. "The effects of vocational education on adult skills and wages: What can we learn from PIAAC?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 168, OECD Publishing.
    13. Dolton, P. J. & Vignoles, A., 2002. "Is a broader curriculum better?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 415-429, October.
    14. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Barbara Sianesi, 2005. "Evaluating the effect of education on earnings: models, methods and results from the National Child Development Survey," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(3), pages 473-512, July.
    15. Verhaest, Dieter & Baert, Stijn, 2015. "The Early Labour Market Effects of Generally and Vocationally Oriented Higher Education: Is There a Trade-off?," IZA Discussion Papers 9137, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Rubin Daniel B & van der Laan Mark J., 2008. "Empirical Efficiency Maximization: Improved Locally Efficient Covariate Adjustment in Randomized Experiments and Survival Analysis," The International Journal of Biostatistics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-42, May.
    17. Ofer Malamud & Cristian Pop-Eleches, 2010. "General Education versus Vocational Training: Evidence from an Economy in Transition," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 43-60, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Brunello, Giorgio & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2015. "The Labour Market Effects of Academic and Vocational Education over the Life Cycle: Evidence from Two British Cohorts," IZA Discussion Papers 9275, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. 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.
    3. Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2017. "The effects of vocational education on adult skills, employment and wages: What can we learn from PIAAC?," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 315-343, November.
    4. Biewen, Martin & (neé Tapalaga), Madalina Thiele, 2020. "Early tracking, academic vs. vocational training, and the value of ‘second-chance’ options," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Bart H. H. Golsteyn & Anders Stenberg, 2017. "Earnings over the Life Course: General versus Vocational Education," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(2), pages 167-212.
    6. Celeste K. Carruthers & Christopher Jepsen, 2020. "Vocational Education: An International Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 8718, CESifo.
    7. 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.
    8. Hall, Caroline, 2016. "Does more general education reduce the risk of future unemployment? Evidence from an expansion of vocational upper secondary education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 251-271.
    9. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra & Terrier, Camille & Ventura, Guglielmo, 2020. "Closing the Gap between Vocational and General Education? Evidence from University Technical Colleges in England," IZA Discussion Papers 13837, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. repec:cep:cepisp:is03 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Chiara Cavaglia & Sandra McNally & Guglielmo Ventura, 2020. "Do Apprenticeships Pay? Evidence for England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(5), pages 1094-1134, October.
    12. Irene Brunetti & Lorenzo Corsini, 2019. "School-to-work transition and vocational education: a comparison across Europe," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1411-1437, July.
    13. 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).
    14. Werner Eichhorst & Núria Rodríguez-Planas & Ricarda Schmidl & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2015. "A Road Map to Vocational Education and Training in Industrialized Countries," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(2), pages 314-337, March.
    15. repec:sip:wpaper:11-003 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Elad Demalach & Noam Zussman, 2017. "The Effect of Vocational Education on Short- and Long-Term Outcomes of Students: Evidence from the Arab Education System in Israel," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2017.11, Bank of Israel.
    17. Sofia Oliveira, 2015. "Returns to Vocational Education in Portugal," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 10, in: Marta Rahona López & Jennifer Graves (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 10, edition 1, volume 10, chapter 37, pages 725-750, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    18. Bellés Obrero, Cristina & Duchini, Emma, 2020. "Who Benefits from General Knowledge?," IZA Discussion Papers 12995, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Tomáš Jagelka, 2017. "The Specificity of Human Capital Investment under Agent Heterogeneity and Market Frictions: Theory and Empirics," LIS Working papers 688, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    20. Hall, Caroline, 2013. "Does more general education reduce the risk of future unemployment? Evidence from labor market experiences during the Great Recession," Working Paper Series 2013:17, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    21. 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.
    22. Zilic, Ivan, 2018. "General versus vocational education: Lessons from a quasi-experiment in Croatia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-11.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/690234. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JHC .

    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.