Subject choice and earnings of UK graduates

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and a considerably larger one within subject with individuals with the most favourable unobserved characteristics obtaining wages almost twice as large as those with the worst. Moreover, gender differences in wages within subjects are also large. We then simulate a graduate tax to calculate a willingness to pay -in form of tuition fees -to capture these subject wage premia.JEL Classification: I22, J31

Comparing sample survey measures of English earnings of graduates with administrative data during the Great Recession

“…Third, documenting the substantial variation in graduate earnings, which has increased over time (e.g. Blundell et al (2005), Bratti et al (2005), Chevalier (2011), Hussain et al (1999, Sloane and O'Leary (2005), Smith and Naylor (2001) and Walker and Zhu (2011)). Fourth, documenting the impact of the Great recession on the distribution of graduate and more generally young peoples' earnings (e.g.…”

Educational Inequality, Educational Expansion and Intergenerational Mobility

“…At first degree level, it is becoming increasingly clear that institutions and courses attended are crucial to determining success (Hussain et al, 2009;Chevalier, 2011;Walker and Zhu, 2011). The Government acknowledges this by including as a social mobility indicator the share of A-level students who are attending the most prestigious universities at age 19, by school type.…”

How English domiciled graduate earnings vary with gender, institution attended, subject and socio-economic background

“…The work is innovative in that, although the empirical literature from the UK has already shown substantial variation in graduate earnings that has increased over time (Blundell et al (2005), Bratti et al (2005), Chevalier (2011), Hussain et al (2009, Sloane and O'Leary (2005), Smith and Naylor (2001), Walker and Zhu (2011)), researchers have not thus far been able to assess adequately how graduate earnings vary according to the university attended. Theoretically we would expect that different institutions may add different amounts of human capital value and hence influence students' success in the labour market.…”