The massification of higher education has dramatically changed the association between credentials and jobs in advanced countries, while its impacts in transitional economies have received less academic attention. To address this research lacuna, the paper utilizes rich information from China's national surveys of college graduates from 2003 to…

This paper estimates private and social returns to investment in education in Azerbaijan, using the 2015 Azerbaijan Monitoring Survey for Social Welfare. The private rate of return to education is 6 percent; this is the first estimate of returns to schooling in Azerbaijan since 1995. The returns to schooling are 6 percent for men and 8 percent for…

This study examines the impact of educational attainment on employment and earnings in Nepal. Using the Nepal Labour Force Survey 2017-2018 cycle, we employ an extended earnings function derived from the foundational Mincer equation to estimate returns to education. The results underscore the overall positive impact of education (1.76, 3.73, 7.68…

In both Canada and the United States, immigrants constitute a disproportionately large share of the supply of university-educated labour trained in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This article examines the Canada-U.S. differences in the occupational skill utilization and earnings of STEM-educated immigrant…

This dissertation examines the impact of state educational programs on the economics of education and labor, focusing on the New York State (NYS) STEM Incentive Program and China's tuition-free policy for vocational secondary education (VSE). The first two Chapters analyze the effects of the NYS STEM Incentive Program, an initiative implemented in…

I analyse trends in teachers' job quality in Britain, using the framework of the European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions, with data from the British Skills and Employment Survey. The issue of increasing concern is not work hours, which have remained long but stable; rather, teachers are working considerably more intensively than in…

This article looks at the labour market outcomes of 2015 postsecondary graduates three years after graduation. Specifically, it examines their employment status, job permanency, relatedness of their job or business to their 2015 educational program, the degree to which graduates feel qualified for their job, their employment income and their job…

Using two representative samples of some 74,000 students and 11,000 graduates, respectively, we analyse the accuracy of students' wage expectations given their individual characteristics. We find that students are aware of the effects of most of their own characteristics, as a large number of determinants of expected and realised salaries do not…

Level of postsecondary schooling and field of study remain significant markers of social stratification. However, the extent to which these various types of postsecondary schooling influence the labor market outcomes of recent male and female graduates is unknown. Drawing on data from Statistics Canada's 2013 National Graduates Survey, we examine…

Does the gender pay gap affect women's ability to repay their student debt? This study investigates the extent to which an income contingent scheme benefits women because of their individual earnings. Using the Australian Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, gender differences in debt repayment behaviour over the past two…

England is currently facing a crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers, with one-in-three newly qualified staff leaving the profession within five years of completing their training. This paper investigates several different aspects of the lives of recently qualified teachers in England, including their life satisfaction, mental health,…

Few empirical studies have analyzed the return to distance higher education in different academic disciplines. This study used quantitative methods, data from a nationwide survey, and Mincerian earnings function to analyze the return to distance higher education among different disciplines in China's labor market. Results were compared with the…

This paper analyses immigrants' educational mismatch and its impact on wages in Spain. The incidence of immigrants' education-occupation mismatch in the Spanish labour market can largely be explained by the mismatch in the last job held in the home country. The probability of having been over-educated in the home country has a higher effect on the…

What factors best explain the low incidence of skills training in a late industrial society like Russia? This research undertakes a multilevel analysis of the role of occupational structure in the probability of training. The explanatory power of occupation-specific determinants and skills polarization are evaluated, using a representative 2012…

We analyze the determinants of job satisfaction of PhD holders in Spain. Specifically, we consider overall job satisfaction as well as basic and motivational satisfaction, following Herzberg's typology (based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Using representative data for Spain's PhD population--collected from the Spanish Survey on Human Resources…