Governments invest a lot of money in education, so it is important to understand the benefits of this spending. One essential aspect is that education may make people better parents and thus improve the educational and employment outcomes of their children. Interventions that encourage the...

Restricting immigration to young and skilled immigrants using a point system, as in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, succeeds in selecting economically desirable immigrants and provides orderly management of population growth. But the point system cannot fix short-term skilled labor shortages...

The Roma are the largest ethnic minority in Europe—as well as one of the most disadvantaged. A triple vicious circle is at play: Substandard socio-economic outcomes reinforce each other; they fuel negative attitudes and perceptions, leading to ill-chosen policies; and segmentation is...

The economic and psychological literatures have demonstrated that early investments (private and public) in children can significantly increase cognitive outcomes in the short and long term and contribute to success later in life. One of the most important of these inputs is maternal time....

The main goal of secondary school education in developed countries is to prepare students for higher education and the labor market. That demands high investments in study duration and specialized fields to meet rising skill requirements. However, these demands for more education are in...

This paper estimates and interprets returns to education for three sub-sectors of labour market by gender in Pakistan, using the most recent data set of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2004-05. The results show two distinctive features of Pakistani education, the...

This strategy paper by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) shows ways in which Germany once more can attain full employment in the coming decade. Much of what the previous government's Agenda 2010 has put into motion has clearly steered labor market development in the right direction. The...

Mit diesem Strategiepapier zeigt das Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA) Wege auf, wie Deutschland in der vor uns liegenden Dekade wieder Vollbeschäftigung erreichen kann. Die Agenda 2010 hat die Arbeitsmarktentwicklung erkennbar in die richtige Richtung bewegt und für ein neues Denken...

Among the OECD countries, Spain faces one of the highest rates of self-employment and Denmark one of the lowest, being the difference specially relevant among women. These two countries present important differences in their labor market conditions in terms of labor market flexibility,...

In this study I examine the impact of fluctuations in the unemployment rate before high school graduation on educational attainment measured 30 years later. I find evidence that educational attainment is countercyclical, as found in other studies, but also find that the impact of the...