Education and Labour Markets

To explain the variation in youth labour markets, we analyse the impact of vocational education and training (VET) in upper secondary education on the labour market integration of the 15-to-24-year-olds. We focus on nine youth labour market indicators, capturing both young people’s labour market integration and the quality of their jobs. We also distinguish between the effects of school-based VET and dual VET.

To address unobserved heterogeneity across countries, we run fixed effects regressions on a panel data set of 45 countries from 2001 to 2013.

We find that having a larger proportion of students enrolled in dual VET significantly reduces unemployment rates and relaxed unemployment rates, whereas a higher enrolment rate in school-based VET significantly increases the rate of young people with atypical working hours. For the integration indicators, the differences between school-based VET and dual VET are significant.

Hence, compared to school-based VET and general education, dual VET is more successful in improving youth labour market performance.

The Enhanced Skills for Sustainable and Rewarding Employment (ENSSURE) initiative aims to improve continuous employment and living standards in Nepal. This research project makes a formative assessment of the apprentice component of ENSSURE, which implements a 24-month dual VET Apprenticeship.

In particular, the project aims to find out how the program can be improved and what the causal effects are of the dual VET Apprenticeship on the labour market situation​. To analyse the causal effect, the project conducts a randomized control trial (RCT).

This meta-analysis quantitatively reviews the studies that analyze the impact of vocational skills training in low- and middle-income countries, mainly targeting youth. The meta-analysis is being conducted through a systematic search for relevant literature in online databases, through search engines (e.g. Google Scholar) and based on the literature reviews and reference list of relevant studies ("snowballing"). We follow a pre-defined search plan specifying the search terms, the places where the search will be conducted and characteristics by which the studies will be coded.

Together with our a priori hypotheses, we have pre-registered the meta-analysis in a registry to increase transparency of the research process. 

Early results indicate that, relative to studies conducted in high-income countries, studies conducted in in low- and middle-income countries yielded larger effect size estimates on average. In addition, studies in low- and middle-income countries are more often targeted at disadvantaged youth, for whom some studies found a relatively large effect (Kluve et al, 2016).

We also include studies that combine vocational skills training with other types of interventions, such as entrepreneurship training, which often display an even larger positive effect on youth labor-market outcomes (Kluve et al, 2016). In addition, we include studies that evaluate informal, non-formal and formal vocational skills training programs or interventions.

No Experience, No Employment: The Effect of Vocational Education and Training Work Experience on Labour Market Outcomes after Higher Education

Higher education graduates with work experience enter the labour market more smoothly. However, some evidence indicates that these effects decay over time. Therefore, this project analyses how work experience from vocational education and training (VET) during secondary education affects labour market outcomes after higher education.

To account for selection into VET we use the regional enrolment rate as an instrument for upper-secondary VET.

Results suggest that work experience gained during VET leads to significantly higher wages one year after graduation from higher education and less search time for first employment, but does not significantly lower the probability of an internship in the post-graduation year. However, these positive effects do not persist: the effect is no longer robustly significant for wages, unemployment, or employment position after five years. The effect operates through the human capital, social network, and screening channels, not the signalling channel.

Our results suggest that upper-secondary VET is a good choice, not the second-best option, for individuals planning on higher education.

Today, high youth unemployment affects developed as well as developing countries in a dramatic way. In the US, 16% of the labor force aged 15-24 is currently unsuccessfully looking for a job. At the same time, many employers have difficulties filling job vacancies with adequately skilled people, particularly middle-skilled workers.

This project analyses the actual and potential role of the business sector as a new actor in the field of education in areas without strong employer-linked vocational education and training (VET). The aim of this study is to analyse firms' training behavior, unmet skills demand, and potential capacity and willingness for new skills development modalities. The survey questions focus on a firm’s human resources strategies; in particular, how firms recruit and train their workforce, and whether and to what extent firms offer formal and informal training programs.

This study, which has already been conducted in Colorado (USA), is part of an ongoing initiative to build a comparative database of companies' behavior related to training and skills. We continue to collect new data and to compare results with existing data on company behavior in countries with and without VET in their education systems. 

This project analyses the relevance of vocational and professional education and training (VPET) for the innovative capacity of the economy by estimating complementarities between VPET and other inputs for determining innovativeness, productivity and employee growth in Swiss firms.

Using firm-level panel data from the triannual KOF innovation and ICT surveys between 1996 and 2017, the project starts by estimating translog production functions to assess complementarities among employees with different education levels, specifically untrained employees, dual VET students, employees with vocational education and training (VET), employees with professional education and training (PET) and employees with tertiary education.

In order to understand the relationship between VPET and other inputs in the production process, the project further analyses the complementarity between employees with VPET and digitalization, physical capital and organizational capital.

The second part of the project investigates the impact of digitalization on the share of employees with VPET. Since complementarities would suggest a positive impact, this approach is an alternative method of indirectly analysing complementarities between VPET and digitalization, thereby validating the results from the first part of the project.

In this project, we analyze the impact of general versus vocational education and training on labor market outcomes of people aged 20 and above in Egypt. We use a regression discontinuity design (RDD), exploiting the fact that only students with a test score above a certain cut-off score are allowed to enter general upper secondary education. We will use data from three different surveys for the years 2009, 2012 and 2014.   

Every year, over 300 fashion designers throughout Switzerland complete their VET program. Both the textile and fashion markets are changing with increasing dynamism as a result of economic drivers such as individualisation, digitalisation, sustainability and regionalisation.

This project examines the professional development of graduates in the field of fashion design and sewing. In addition, we present the potential of the competences acquired in VET in the textile and fashion market and describe market-based indications for the further development of competences in VET for garment designers and sewers.

A 2012 survey conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on Egypt showed that the unemployment rate was an increasing function of individuals’ education levels. Statistics revealed that university level graduates had the highest rate of unemployment at 34% among youths, compared to 2.4% for those with less than a primary school education (Ghada et. al, 2014).These trends are worrying as they suggest a disincentive for Egyptian youth to pursue higher education, while education has often been touted as one of the major determinants of social, economic and political progress.

This study therefore aims to empirically examine how and if increased exposure to schooling truly decreases employment quality, using Egypt’s 1999 primary school reform. Specifically, we investigate if various employment outcomes (type of occupation, the sector of employment, the stability of employment (permanent, temporary, seasonal, casual), and decision-making regarding labor force participation among women and children), were affected by an additional year of primary school.

As part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations aims to eliminate the practices of female genital mutilation (FGM) and intimate partner violence (IPV) in order to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment as it violates several human rights outlined under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Education has often been promoted as a way to mitigate and curb FGM and IPV. More specifically, the connection between FGM, IPV and education is twofold: education and awareness about the practice and its risks, and general educational attainment. This study thus aims to focus on one of the links between education, FGM and IPV - general educational attainment - and it’s battle against these practices in Egypt. Exploiting the 1999 primary school reform in Egypt which extended schooling by a year, we use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to establish a causal relationship between increased education and the incidence of FGM and IPV.