Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy
No 2009:9: Does making upper secondary school more comprehensive affect dropout rates, educational attainment and earnings? Evidence from a Swedish pilot scheme
Caroline Hall ()
Additional contact information
Caroline Hall: Institute for Labour Market Polilcy Evaluation, Postal: Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract: Since the mid-20th century many OECD countries have discarded their previous selective schools systems, in which students early on were separated between academic and vocational tracks, in favor of more comprehensive schools. The effects of these reforms have generally been difficult to evaluate and their consequences for students’ educational and labor market outcomes remain disputed. This paper evaluates the effects of the introduction of a more comprehensive upper secondary school system in Sweden in the 1990s. The reform reduced the differences between the academic and vocational educational tracks through prolonging and substantially increasing the academic content of all vocational tracks. The effects of this policy change are identified by exploiting a six year pilot scheme, which preceded the actual reform in some municipalities. The results show that the prolongation of the vocational tracks brought about an increased probability of dropping out among low performing students. Though one important motive behind the policy change was to enable all upper secondary school graduates to pursue a university degree, I find no effects on university enrolment or graduation. There are some indications, however, that attending the longer and more academic vocational track may have led to increased earnings in the long run.
Keywords: Upper secondary education; comprehensive school system; educational attainment; earnings; instrumental variables
42 pages, April 22, 2009
Full text files
wp09-09.pdf
- Published as
- Caroline Hall, (2012), 'The Effects of Reducing Tracking in Upper Secondary School: Evidence from a Large-Scale Pilot Scheme', Journal of Human Resources, vol 47, no 1, pages 237-269
- IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy
- Ordering Working Papers
- Home page for this series
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Ali Ghooloo ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2009_009This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:15:19.