We examine the causal impact of China's higher education expansion on labor market outcomes for young college graduates using China's 2005 1% Population Sample Survey. Exploiting variation in the expansion of university spots across provinces and high school cohorts and applying a...

Utilizing data for comparable BSc graduates in economics who have studied in different universities that had set the same entry standards, we compare job seekers' employment prospects when they search by themselves for jobs by submitting CVs to the same firms. The outcomes suggest that graduates...

Universities around the world are attempting to increase the diversity of their student population. This includes individuals who are 'first in family' (FiF), those who achieve a university degree, but whose (step) parents did not. We provide the first large scale, quantitative evidence on FiF...

We exploit linked survey-administrative data from England to examine how first in family (FiF) graduates (those whose parents do not have university degrees) fare on the labor market. We find that among graduate women, FiF graduates earn 8.3% less on average than graduate women whose parents...

Using a specific micro-dataset with information on working histories, we analyse the labour market entry of Spanish youths who have completed vocational education. According to the education system, young people can enter the labour market with vocational high school (upper secondary education)...

This paper reviews the empirical economic literature on the relative importance of non cognitive skills for school and labour market outcomes, with a focus on Europe. There is evidence that high cognitive test scores are likely to result not only from high cognitive skills but also from high...

We study the returns to apprenticeship and vocational training for three early labor market outcomes all measured at age 25 for East and West German youths: non-employment (i.e., unemployment or out of the labor force), permanent fulltime employment, and wages. We find strong positive effects of...

This paper provides estimates of the impact of higher education qualifications on the earnings of graduates in the UK by subject studied. We use data from the recent UK Labour Force Surveys which provide a sufficiently large sample to consider the effects of the subject studied, class of first...

In an effort to reduce the gender gap in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), policymakers often propose providing women with close mentoring by female scientists. This is based on the idea that female scientists might act as role models and counteract negative...

I use the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates to examine the higher exit rate of women compared to men from science and engineering relative to other fields. I find that the higher relative exit rate is driven by engineering rather than science, and show that 60% of the gap can...