Fluctuations in the wage gap between vocational and general secondary education: Lessons from Portugal.

A new GLO Discussion Paper studies the wage gap between vocational and general secondary education in Portugal to find no support for the human capital prediction of crossing wage profiles and no support either for the hypothesis that general graduates increasingly outperform vocational graduates in late career.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

Hugo Reis

GLO Discussion Paper No. 769, 2021

Fluctuations in the wage gap between vocational and general secondary education: lessons from PortugalDownload PDF
by
Hartog, Joop & Raposo, Pedro S. & Reis, Hugo

GLO Fellow Hugo Reis

Author Abstract: We document and analyze the wage gap between vocational and general secondary education in Portugal between 1994 and 2013. As Portuguese workers have been educated in different school systems, we have to distinguish birth cohorts. Analyzing the wage gaps within cohorts, we find no support for the human capital prediction of crossing wage profiles and no support either for the hypothesis that general graduates increasingly outperform vocational graduates in late career. We discover that the lifecycle wage profiles have shifted over time. We link the pattern of shifting cohort profiles to changes in the school system and in the structure of labor demand. We conclude that assessing the relative value of vocational education requires to assess how the vocational curriculum responds to changes in economic structure and technology. We show that the decline in assortative matching between workers and firms has benefited vocationally educated workers.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers)Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

Ends;

This entry was posted in News, Research. Bookmark the permalink.