Rewards to Education in the Tourism Sector: One Step Ahead

Abstract

The authors analyse private returns to education in the Spanish tourism sector -that is, the increase in salary associated with an additional year of study. Mincer-type functions are estimated, drawing on a large sample from the Spanish Survey on Working Conditions, which allows robust estimations. Unlike previous analyses, the existence of an ability bias is considered explicitly through the use of instrumental variables techniques. The results show that, contrary to previous estimates based on OLS, the estimated returns in the tourism sector are not significantly different from those of the Spanish economy as a whole. The authors also provide additional evidence on the heterogeneity that is apparent when the tourism sector workforce is disaggregated by age, sex and work experience.

The regional wage gap in the Spanish hospitality sector based on a gender perspective

“…For women, the values range between 0.9% (Valencia) and 4.6% (Madrid). These results are not strictly comparable to those of Pastor et al (2006) and Lillo-Bañuls and Casado-Díaz (2010). We estimate separate regressions by gender and additional variables are introduced in the estimation.…”

“…First, the studies by Lillo-Bañuls and Casado-Díaz (2010), and Pastor et al (2006) provide very different estimates for this sector compared to the Spanish economy as a whole, other services and the tourism sector as a whole. In all cases, the returns on education and experience, in statistical terms, are lower in the hospitality sector.…”

A Comparative Analysis on Human Capital and Wage Structure in the Spanish Hospitality Sector

“…The results of previous studies that specified the original Mincer equation showed education returns to be between 4.1% [17] when the estimation method used is ordinary least square and 5.6% [18] when instrumental variable techniques are used. Nevertheless, in both papers, education returns in the hospitality sector are less than the estimates for most economic sectors.…”

Tourism economics research: A review and assessment

“…The focus has shifted from the level of tourism employment, input-output analysis and the multiplier effect (Dwyer & Forsyth, 1998) to the quality and structure of employment (e.g., Sinclair, 1990Sinclair, , 1997, particularly the gender wage gap (e.g., Campos-Soria, Ortega-Aguaza, & Ropero-Garcia, 2009;Munoz-Bullon, 2009). These discussions provide useful policy implications in relation to poverty alleviation, labour immigration, and education (Riley & Szivas, 2009;Lillo-Bañuls & Casado-Diaz, 2010). With regard to the methodology of wage-related empirical studies, the traditional OLS method has been criticised and more appropriate alternatives are now employed, such as a two-limit Tobit model (Muñoz-Bullón, 2009) and instrumental variables techniques (Lillo-Bañuls & Casado-Díaz, 2010).…”