Unpacking returns to vocational education in England: the role of skills, labour market sorting and mobility

解析英国职业教育的回报：技能、劳动力市场分类和流动性的作用

• 批准号: ES/Z502534/1
• 金额: $ 15.02万
• 依托单位: London School of Economics and Political Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FZ502534%2F1
• 关键词: Unpacking; returns; vocational; education; England

In the UK, widespread participation in postsecondary education goes hand in hand with a relatively high number of students leaving education prematurely, ill-equipped for the labour market. This growing polarization has revived policymakers' interest in strengthening the role of vocational education as a way of improving students' labour market prospects while also relieving skills shortages across the economy.Yet, evidence on the economic benefits of vocational education is mixed and varies depending on the alternative it is compared to. Accounting for differences in students' ability and social background, recent evidence from England by Matthewes and Ventura (2022) finds significant earnings losses for students who opt for vocational rather than academic education, with some tentative evidence that vocational education may benefit those who would instead drop out of education at the age of 16. However, due to data limitations, we still know frustratingly little of why returns to vocational education in England are lower than in other countries and whether or how this could be improved.To answer this question, I set out to use newly available information from the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data linked to Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) to study what factors drive the relationship between students' education and labour market outcomes in England, focusing on the role of skills, labour market sorting and job mobility. Focusing separately on vocational students who would have either followed an academic route or dropped out of education at age 16, I will consider the type of skills students acquire and how these determine the type of sector and firm they are employed in, as well as their ability to change job and progress in their careers.The study will be articulated in three interdependent research objectives: the first objective will provide a descriptive overview of labour market trajectories by education, decomposing earnings growth into separate between- and within-job components before exploring the role of selective sorting across sectors and firms. The second objective will study the effect of enrolling in vocational education on skills, sector of employment and mobility for students whose alternative is academic education, using students' distance to post-16 education institutions as an independent source of variation in their education choices. Finally, under the third objective, I will consider whether the 2013 increase in education participation age to 17 prodded students into vocational courses and whether this led them to acquire more technical or social skills, allowing them to find employment in better-paid sectors or firms.Overall, my proposed research has the ambition to improve our still imperfect understanding of the economic returns to vocational education by combining novel and rigorous empirical evidence from England with an emphasis on the interaction between skills and labour market structures. In so doing, the research will get to the heart of the ongoing debate on education policy in the UK, shedding light on the country's skills strategy. This research will inform British policymakers reform efforts, ensuring the post-16 education offer is well-aligned with the skills needed to succeed in the UK labour market of the 21st century, thus benefiting future generations of students and workers.

在英国，普遍接受高等教育的同时，也有相当多的学生过早辍学，无法适应劳动力市场。这种日益严重的两极分化重新唤起了政策制定者对加强职业教育作用的兴趣，职业教育是改善学生劳动力市场前景的一种方式，同时也是缓解整个经济中技能短缺的一种方式。考虑到学生能力和社会背景的差异，Matthewes和Ventura（2022）最近在英格兰的证据发现，选择职业教育而不是学术教育的学生的收入损失很大，一些初步证据表明，职业教育可能会使那些在16岁时辍学的学生受益。然而，由于数据的限制，我们仍然对为什么英国职业教育的回报率低于其他国家以及是否或如何改善这一点知之甚少。我开始使用从纵向教育成果（LEO）数据链接到部门间业务登记（IDBR）的新可用信息研究是什么因素推动了英国学生的教育和劳动力市场结果之间的关系，重点是技能，劳动力市场分类和工作流动性的作用。我将分别关注那些在16岁时要么走上学术道路要么辍学的职业学生，考虑学生获得的技能类型，以及这些技能如何决定他们受雇于的行业和公司的类型，以及他们转换工作和职业发展的能力。本研究将阐述三个相互依存的研究目标：第一个目标将提供按教育分列的劳动力市场轨迹的描述性概览，将收入增长分解为工作之间和工作内的不同组成部分，然后探讨在部门和公司之间进行选择性分类的作用。第二个目标将研究职业教育对技能、就业部门和选择接受学术教育的学生的流动性的影响，将学生与16岁以上教育机构的距离作为其教育选择差异的一个独立来源。最后，在第三个目标下，我将考虑2013年将教育参与年龄提高到17岁是否促使学生进入职业课程，这是否使他们获得更多的技术或社会技能，使他们能够在收入更高的部门或公司找到工作。我提出的研究目标是通过结合新的和新的方法，来自英国的严格的经验证据，强调技能和劳动力市场结构之间的相互作用。通过这样做，这项研究将触及英国正在进行的教育政策辩论的核心，从而阐明该国的技能战略。这项研究将为英国政策制定者的改革努力提供信息，确保16岁以上的教育机会与在21世纪世纪英国劳动力市场取得成功所需的技能保持一致，从而使未来几代学生和工人受益。