Using full population Norwegian register data, we investigate how the outcomes of vocational school students are impacted by the accessibility of apprenticeships, a characteristic of dual vocational systems that is sparsely researched. Our data contains information on vocational students’ applications for apprenticeships within specializations, as well as the number of contracts actually signed. Thus, we can construct access rates (contracts signed/applications) that vary across specialization, county and year for four birth cohorts of vocational school students (1993 – 1996). We also control for a rich set of variables, including GPA from lower secondary school and several student and parent characteristics. The outcomes considered are dropout from upper secondary school, employment, and NEE (not being in post-secondary school nor employment) at age 23. The results show that access to apprenticeship has a strong effect on the dropout risk for students at age 21: at the average dropout risk, increasing the access rate by 10 percentage points decreases the dropout risk by 10 %. The results also suggest that employment and NEE are favourably affected, but to a lesser extent. A heterogeneity analysis revealed modest gender differences. However, students with an immigrant background from Africa and Asia, who exhibit the highest dropout risk, had less effects of the access rate for apprenticeships than students with a non-immigrant background. © 2025 The Author(s).
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