When a pronounced taste for science leads researchers to self-select themselves in academia, higher education systems must be able to protect it. By relying on the economic theory of higher education, the international mobility and the sociology of science literature, we compare the working condition in the four major European higher education…

This dissertation presents three separate essays. The first two essays explore the gender wage gap and its dynamics in urban China from 1995 to 2018. The first chapter decomposes the gender wage gap based on the observed wage for workers with a precise measure of the hourly wages. The first chapter examines the observed average gender wage gap in…

Positional competition in the labour market entails graduate opportunities that depend not only on graduates' skills, experience and abilities, but also on how their educational credentials compare to those of others. In this study, we examined the positional competition in the Finnish labour market and compared the influence of different 'degree…

The population of the United States is getting older. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), older workers -- which the BLS defines as those who are 55 and older -- made up 22% of the U.S. workforce in 2016, nearly double the 12% recorded in 1995. This increase is largely "fueled by the aging baby-boom generation, a large…

Many studies assessing national policy reforms in education focus on the likelihood of acquiring an advanced education and the associated returns in the labor market. In this paper, the authors investigate the impact of the Israeli Academic Colleges Law that was designed to promote the acquisition of higher education among all segments of the…

Raising educational levels may help to reduce inequalities between men and women in certain social and economic aspects. Using statistics for Spain, we analyse labour market behaviours such as the rates of activity and unemployment by sex according to the educational level. The results reveal that the differences between men and women decrease as…

This article tests effectively maintained inequality theory against the case of China. Employing Chinese College Student Survey data from 2012, the study elaborates on the rationale and causes behind the expansion of higher education over the last two decades and the impact this has had on the system. Rather than empowering disadvantaged students,…

This paper examines the effects of grades from higher education on labour market outcomes. Economic theory predicts that grades are rewarded in the labour market because employers regard them as an expression of valuable skills or a signal of other sought after attributes. Social closure, however, may give reason to expect no effects. Whether good…

The main objective of this study is to empirically test a number of theory-based models (i.e., fixed effects [FE], random effects [RE], and aggregated residuals [AR]) to measure the generic knowledge as well as the degree attainment rates and early labor outcomes gained by students in different programs and institutions in higher education. Our…

This paper aims to develop a better understanding about the labour market dynamics behind the unparalleled demand in higher education and dragging growth rates in vocational high school (VHS) education in Turkey. While estimating labour market outcomes of fields of study has been the subject of many studies in the West, such studies are lacking in…

This paper assesses the impact of the mismatch between a college major and job on college graduates' early career earnings using a sample from China. On average, a major-job mismatched college graduate is found to suffer from an income loss that is much lower than the penalty documented in previous studies. The income losses are also found to be…

Data show that educated workers earn higher wages and are unemployed less often. Some researchers believe that education improves a worker's productivity (or "human capital"), making them more desirable on the job market, while others believe that it improves a worker's network (or "social capital"), giving them more…

In the last two decades, we have witnessed a rapid expansion of higher education in Mainland China and Taiwan, recording a significant increase in higher education enrolments in these two Chinese societies. The massification of higher education in China and Taiwan has inevitably resulted in an oversupply of university graduates, with growing…

This study examines the labor market gains for students who enrolled at for-profit colleges after beginning their post-secondary education in community college. We use student-level administrative record data from college transcripts, Unemployment Insurance earnings data, and progression data from the National Student Clearinghouse across full…

This paper contributes to the literature by separately analysing the course enrolment and completion effects of vocational education and training (VET) as well as higher education. Moreover, we investigate the persistence of these wage effects over time while controlling for two potential selection biases. We take advantage of the Longitudinal…