Article 2018

Is School the Best Route to Skills? Returns to Vocational School and Vocational Skills in Egypt

KC
Krafft, Caroline
Journal of Development Studies
Journal · Vol. 54 · Issue 7 · pp. 1100-1120
Abstract

This paper tests the assumption that formal education is the best route to job skills. The returns to formal vocational secondary schooling are compared to the returns to acquiring skills outside the education system, such as undertaking an apprenticeship, for male wage workers in Egypt. A unique longitudinal dataset with information on schooling and skills allows for causal inference about returns by comparing siblings. For recent cohorts, the estimated returns to formal vocational secondary education are the same as attaining no formal education. However, the returns to skills obtained outside of formal education are substantial. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

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Index Keywords

Vocational education skilled labor wage comparative study returns to education data set secondary education cohort analysis Egypt
Author Affiliations
Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States, Present affiliation: Department of Economics, St. Catherine University, USA, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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