Perceived rates of return to higher education in Cyprus

The paper estimates perceived rates of return to higher education in Cyprus and uses them in logistic regression analysis in order to study the effect of economic considerations on the decision of secondary school pupils to pursue higher education. Unlike earlier studies, the data used in the computation of these rates are based wholly on the pupils' subjective estimates. The results are supportive of human capital theory: The mean rate of return to higher education estimated by higher education candidates is considerably higher than that perceived by labour market entrants. Logistic regression analysis shows the percieved rate of return to higher education, as estimated by both the elaborate and the short-cut methods, to have a significant effect on the pupils' educational intentions.     

The economic benefits of higher education in Cyprus: The expectations of prospective students

The paper investigates the economic benefits and costs of higher education as these are perceived by higher education candidates and labour market entrants in Cyprus. It provides further evidence on the topic after a similar study which preceded the present project by 10 years. Perceived rates of return to education are presented for two points in time, namely, 1993 and 2003. The findings point to an increasing awareness of the link between education and earnings on the part of young people, which can be linked to the country's economic development. The main influences on the respondents’ expected lifetime earnings are examined through multiple regression analysis. Gender and ability are found to be significantly related to expected earnings.     

Are There Economic Incentives for Non‐Traditional Students to Enter HE? The Labour Market as a Barrier to Widening Participation

The expansion of higher education (HE) in the UK has disproportionately benefited young people from relatively rich families: the gap between rich and poor in terms of participation in HE having widened since the 1970s. We explore a neglected possible cause of this class difference: that the labour market fails to provide sufficient incentives for potential entrants from less advantaged backgrounds to enter HE. Most studies of the rewards from participating in HE in the UK suggest that the rates of returns are sufficiently high to provide clear economic incentives to participate. However, until recently, most studies generated estimates of the average rate of return to graduation, which could overestimate returns to marginal entrants, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this review we examine the methodological problems faced by more targeted studies of the rates of return to graduation and review their key findings concerning the economic returns to non‐traditional entrants.     

Influences on the intention to enter higher education: the importance of expected returns

Research points to several determinants of the private demand for higher education, which include individual, social, economic, and institutional variables. Of these variables, economic factors are considered to be highly relevant, especially in the current financial crisis. The paper investigates the link between expected rates of return to higher education and the intention of secondary education graduates to pursue university studies. The effect of additional variables influencing the choice of higher education (ability, gender, socioeconomic status [SES], type of secondary school, area of residence) is also examined. The findings show a significant link between the perceived rates of return and the intention of secondary school graduates to enter tertiary education. With the exception of residence, all independent variables are strong determinants of the intention to enter higher education. The paper also points to the considerable effect of the financial crisis on students’ expectations in that respondents reported lower perceived rates of return compared to previous estimates in the same country. The implications of the findings for higher education policy are discussed.     

The returns to education in Slovenia

This article provides estimates of the returns to education in Slovenia. A Mincerian earnings function was estimated on three data sets, i.e. the 1978, 1983 and 1993 Household Expenditure Survey, with the subsample consisting of households where adults were employees (in the public or private sector). The estimated rates of return for all educational levels and for both men and women were rather low in 1978 and 1983. This can be explained with a tightly regulated labour market, with direct state interference-and thus small wage differentials. In 1993, the estimated rates of return increased considerably, though they are still somewhat lower than in most developed market economies. This increase was-without doubt-caused by a more deregulated labour market and a strong push towards market liberalization.     

Transition systems and non-standard employment in early career: comparing Japan and Switzerland

Even though Japan and Switzerland are characterised by comparatively low youth unemployment rates, non-standard forms of employment are on the rise, posing a risk to the stable integration of young labour market entrants. Drawing on the French approach of societal analysis, this paper investigates how country-specific school-to-work transition systems stratify the risk of non-standard employment in early career differently in Japan and Switzerland. Our results reveal that in Japan, young entrants who completed university education are least at risk of becoming employed in non-standard work. On the contrary, it is the highly educated university graduates who mainly enter the labour market via non-standard employment in Switzerland, where vocational education promotes smooth transitions into standard employment relationships. Our findings suggest that the transition systems of the two countries differ in the way they revert to non-standard forms of employment. However, while job insecurities may not endanger labour market integration of highly skilled university graduates holding good career prospects in Switzerland, they may go hand in hand with social exclusion processes for the low-educated young entrants lacking bargaining power in the segmented Japanese labour market.     

Student expectations of the financial returns to higher education in the Czech Republic and England: Evidence from business schools

In this paper, the short-cut method is used to estimate expected rates of financial returns to higher education in the Czech Republic and a modified version of the method is used to suit the current English system of deferred tuition fees. First year university students were asked to estimate their expected earnings with and without a university degree at two points in time. The findings show that students perceive higher education to be a profitable investment and that rates of return vary by gender as well as by country and place of study. We conclude that the current level of tuition fees in England does not act as a disincentive for students to enter higher education.     

高校扩招政策降低了城镇劳动力的大学教育溢价吗？——基于反事实选择的因果关系推断

本文采用北京师范大学收入分配研究院提供的两轮收入调查数据,采用微观计量实证研究方法,基于教育选择的反事实选择框架,揭示了高校扩招政策与城镇劳动力大学教育溢价间的因果关系。结果发现:通过基准回归估算出整体教育回报率由2007年的7.1%上升到2013年的9.1%,分教育层级回归揭示了大学教育收益率在扩招政策前后均高于高中教育阶段,但在利用工具变量法纠正了内生性偏估后,城镇劳动力的整体教育回报率由14.1%下降到了9.1%,而纠正了自选择偏差后,整体教育回报率则由2007年的5%上升到了2013年的10.7%;利用倾向得分匹配法实现数据平衡后,通过平均处理效应估算出大学教育的年收益率由2007年的9.5%~9.75%上升到了2013年的11.425%~11.925%,验证了扩招政策并未降低城镇劳动力的大学教育溢价。基于此,本文提出,通过人力资本梯度升级至研究生教育层级,逐渐收敛由市场因素与人力资本因素引致的城镇收入不平等。     

To work or to continue to higher education? The choice of senior secondary students in Shenzhen, China

In the planning and development of highereducation, it is necessary to understand the majorfactors affecting senior secondary students' decisionson whether to continue to higher education or to enterinto labor force. This is particularly important incountries shifting from a centrally-planned economy toa market-oriented economy where individuals areallowed free choice. This study in 1997 surveyed theeducational intentions of 1,513 senior secondarystudents in Shenzhen, the first and largest SpecialEconomic Zone (SEZ) in China which has adopted amarket-oriented economy and an open door policy for thelast two decades. Ninety percent of students in thestudy opted to continue into higher education oncompletion of senior secondary education. Theyexpected a much higher rate of return to highereducation than the remaining ten percent of studentswho opted to work after completing senior secondaryeducation. The analysis of logistic regression usedin this study reveals that students' expected rate ofreturn to higher education has a positive andsignificant effect on their intention to pursue highereducation, after controlling for the effects of thestudents' gender, family background and ability. Itis evident that students in this study acted inaccordance with predictions in the human capitaltheory in making their choice of higher education orwork in the market-oriented economy sector of China. This pattern of educational choice has importantbearing on the development of higher education indeveloping countries.     

Is It worth Being ‘Traditional’ in An Era of Mass Individualization?

This article deals with the question of how the segmentation of higher education participation connects with the segmentation of the graduate labour market into jobs with different levels of quality. With data comprising educational and labour market histories of graduates with Master's degree from nine European countries, the author analyses how graduates with traditional higher education careers come off on the European labour market compared to those with non‐traditional educational careers. When examining the quality of the employment that graduates obtain early on in their career, three criteria are applicable: the job stability and the quality of the education‐job match to both the level of their studies and skills. The method used in the analysis is logistic regression. Results indicate that being a traditional/non‐traditional graduate does affect the odds of finding proper employment; however, whether the influence is positive or negative greatly varies with respect to gender; the number of graduates with the same type of educational career on the local market and the criteria used to evaluate the adequacy of the employment.     

Seven aspects of democracy as related to study circles

Despite a number of relevant longitudinal studies carried out in Sweden, Finland, Norway and the United States of America, there is a relative paucity of research into the long-term outcomes of adult return to learning. This paper uses data from the first survey in Scotland into the longterm outcomes of adult learning (in this case, formal education/training) in order to explore the potential of adult learning for enhancing social citizenship,by facilitating labour market insertion and progress. The paper focuses particularly on an analysis of gender patterns. The issues addressed are: the extent to which respondents expected participation in adult education to benefit them in the labour market; whether labour-market-orientated participation in adult education brought positive occupational outcomes; the extent to which unintended labour market outcomes arose from participation in adult education; how women who undertook adult education did in labour market terms compared to men; to what extent personal perception of labour market progress was related to income; the kind of adult education which appeared to bring the most beneficial labour market outcomes; and any differences between men and women in this respect.     

The economic returns to investment in women's education

The paper discusses the problems of measuring the rate of return to women's education, and evidence is presented for nine countries which shows that the returns to secondary and higher education are on average two percentage points lower for women than for men, but in some countries they are actually higher. Education increases the earning capacity of women, and also increases their propensity to remain in the labour market. But some allowance must be made for the value of women's non-market work, for indirect benefits of education, and for psychic income. Various methods are suggested for measuring the non-monetary benefits of education, such as the intergeneration effect of a mother's education on the future achievement of her children, or the non-pecuniary benefits of employment for women in the labour force. The effects of discrimination on women's earnings and job prospects are discussed, and it is shown that a large part of the observed differential between male and female earnings is due to the concentration of women in low-income occupations. The paper concludes that the difference between the returns to education for men and women is less than is often suggested, particularly if some attempt is made to measure nonmonetary benefits. But the returns to women's education would be increased if there were a change in traditional attitudes leading to a more equal occupational distribution and better utilisation of women in the labour force.     

我国聋人高等工科教育个人投资的内部收益率研究

在市场经济条件下高等教育越来越多地被人们视作一种理性投资行为,对教育活动成本和预期收益的判断成为政府部门和受教育者个人投资决策的重要参考因素。通过调查问卷,运用教育经济学的内部收益率法对聋人高等工科教育个人投资的成本收益进行分析。研究发现。我国聋人高等工科教育个体投资的内部收益率约为11％。结果表明：1．聋人接受高等工科教育具有正的内部收益率;2．聋人接受高等工科教育的内部收益率低于普通高等教育。     

Student expectations and labour market performance: The case of the Philippines

This article uses individual data on 10,000 higher education students and 5,000 graduates in the Philippines in 1977 to assess theex ante student perceptions of the labour market against actual labour market outcomes. A comparison of mean expected and actual earnings by various sample characteristics reveals a high degree of realism from the students' viewpoint. Individual self-assessed foregone earnings are used to estimate theex ante returns to higher education and to investment in particular fields of specialization. The expected returns are close to the actual returns. Expected and actual waiting time to first job are of a short duration and a sharply declining function of age. Family background and college performance strongly influence the expected and actual labour market outcomes. The policy implications of the results are briefly discussed.     

Positional competition in a binary system: the case of Finnish higher education

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 types’ on the probability of obtaining high-paid, high-status jobs. We used a register-based 5% sample of 25–45-year-old Finnish higher education (HE) graduates from 2010 to 2012 (N?=?63 486). It was expected that the relative position of graduates would be affected by the degree level as well as the educational field and the binary division (university vs. non-university) of HE. Therefore, master’s and bachelor’s degree levels in all educational fields from universities versus universities of applied sciences (UASs) were included. The method of analysis was logistic regression. According to our results, the binary divide structured the opportunities to enter high-paid, high-status jobs within different fields of education. The university master’s degree graduates had the highest probability of succeeding in the Finnish labour market, and their status/rank elevated them above the competition by regulating access to certain professions or occupations through specific qualification requirements (i.e., credential social closure). Moreover, our results demonstrated how the degree rankings and the relative distance between university and UAS degrees vary in different fields. The Finnish case offers a valuable point of comparison to other HE systems with a binary structure.

     

‘The degree is not enough’: students’ perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability

The UK Government is calling upon higher education students to see their learning as an investment that will give them direct benefits in the labour market. At the same time, the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in labour market has been changing in recent times. Based on a qualitative study with 53 final‐year undergraduate students in a pre‐1992 university, this article examines the way higher education students understand the role of their educational credentials in relation to their future employability. It shows that students perceive their academic qualifications as having a declining role in shaping their employment outcomes in what is perceived to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market.     

Expected Rate of Return on the Personal Investment in Education of No-Fee Preservice Students

Return on personal investment is an important factor affecting the decision to invest in education. This article analyzes the personal education costs of no-fee preservice students, estimates and forecasts the return on their personal education investment, and compares the costs and benefits of for-fee preservice students and nonteaching students. It finds that the expected return on personal investment in education is higher for no-fee preservice students than for-fee preservice students, but lower for nonteaching students. This finding has reference value for attracting more outstanding students to choose no-fee teacher education. However, given that the expected return on personal investment in education is lower for preservice teaching students than for nonteaching students, we recommend that the Chinese government consider diverse methods to encourage no-fee teacher education. Reducing the personal cost of education and increasing teacher salaries and subsidies, for example, would increase the expected return on personal investment in education, thereby attracting more outstanding students to the teaching profession.     

Labour Market Influence on Recruitment to Higher Education – Gender and Class Perspectives

The hypothesis that an economic recession in society leads to class equalisation in the recruitment of new students to higher education is tested, using data from Sweden. The 1990s is a period suitable for these analyses, as the recession started in 1991, reached the highest unemployment level in 1993; finally, at the end of the decade the labour market recovered. Multivariate, binary logistic regressions of entry into higher education are performed with gender divided analyses. Register data from Sweden comprising the total population in the age range 18–21 years from six cohorts are analysed. When the labour market was the most difficult, more young students from lower classes entered higher education. When the labour market recovered, men from lower classes tended to abandon higher education. However, women from lower classes continued to increase their involvement. The result indicate that the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test, works in favour of men from higher classes through repeated test taking. The hypothesis about the influence from the labour market was supported for the group of men, while results were less clear for women. The results indicate that future research must carefully consider gender aspects.     

Factors influencing job attainment in recent Bachelor graduates: evidence from Australia

Favourable graduate employment outcomes are critical for future enrolments in higher education. Enrolments fund higher education providers and ensure a continuous supply of graduates to enhance organisational effectiveness, national productivity and global competitiveness. Recent evidence suggests the global financial crisis has softened graduate labour markets. Stakeholder concerns for graduate career prospects and the adequacy of return on investment from studying at university prompt exploration of those factors which influence graduate employment outcomes. This study tests, using logistic regression, a model of job attainment in recent Bachelor graduates of Australian higher education providers using national data gathered in 2011 (n = 28,246) and 2012 (n = 28,009). Findings indicate employer selection criteria broadly align with our understanding of what constitutes graduate employability, including technical expertise, generic skill mastery and a successfully formed graduate identity. Labour market opportunities, however, are not based on merit alone with employers favouring those graduating from prestigious universities, part-time students and whose study incorporated elements of on-campus learning. There were also noted variations by discipline, age and residency status. The study enhances our understanding of which factors influence graduate employment outcomes and discusses implications for relevant stakeholders.