Education, Occupational Class, and Unemployment in the Regions of the United Kingdom

Vani Borooah, John Mangan

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)
    67 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Estimating the returns to education is an important aspect of empirical economics. Usually this is achieved by estimating the additional earnings provided by an extra year of schooling. However, given the difficulty of obtaining reliable earnings data, this approach is not always easy to implement. This paper proposes an alternative measure of returns to education based on the probability of “labour market success” associated with different levels of qualification. Returns to education, so conceived, are estimated on data from the 2001 UK Census for the different regions of the UK. Two measures of “success” are used: first, the likelihood of persons in employment being in “good” jobs; second, the likelihood of persons in the labour force being in employment. The results show that, in every region of the UK, better qualifications are significantly and strongly associated with higher probabilities of labour market success.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)351-370
    JournalEducation Economics
    Volume16
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - Dec 2008

    Bibliographical note

    Reference text: Ashenfelter, O., Harmon, C., and Oosterbeek, H. (1999), A Review of Estimates of the Schooling/Earnings Relationship, with Tests for Publication Bias.” Labour Economics, Vol. 6, pp. 453-470.
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    Dutta, J., Sefton, J., and Weale, M. (1999), “Education and Public Policy,” Fiscal Studies, vol. 20, pp. 351-386.
    Harmon, C., Oosterbeek, H. and Walker, I. (2003) “The Returns to Education – A Review of Evidence, Issues and Deficiencies in the Literature.” (with). Journal of Economic Surveys, vol. 17, pp. 155-156.
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    Greene, W.H., (2000), Econometric Analysis, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
    Mankiw, N.G. (1998), Principles of Economics, New York: Worth Publishers Inc.
    Mincer, J. (1958), “Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution”, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 66, pp. 281-302.
    Prais, S.J. (1995), Productivity, Education and Training, London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

    Keywords

    • Education
    • Returns
    • Regions
    • UK

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