Article Green Open Access 2023

Preference-choice mismatch and university dropout

FD
Fouarge, Didier
 HP
Heß, Pascal
Labour Economics
Journal · Vol. 83 · Art. 102405
Abstract

Drawing on data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we show that students who select majors that do not match their occupational preferences prior to enrolling in university are more likely to drop out than those who do choose majors that match their occupational preferences. Our findings suggest that this gap cannot be explained by institutional obstacles to entering a major. Instead, the primary mechanisms behind this phenomenon are indecisiveness and preference changes. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Dropout Tertiary education Mismatch preferences

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands, IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Institute for Employment Research, Bremen, Germany
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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