Quality of higher education and the labor market in developing countries: Evidence from an education reform in Senegal

Dorothee Boccanfuso, Alexandre Larouche () and Mircea Trandafir
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Alexandre Larouche: Del Degan, Massé

Cahiers de recherche from Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke

Abstract: While many studies look into the effect of primary school quality on labor market outcomes in developing countries, little is known about the effects at higher education levels. In this paper, we use the experiment provided by a large-scale education reform launched in Senegal in 2000 to examine the effects of quality improvements at the university level on the labor market outcomes of young high-skilled workers. Our estimates from a difference-in-difference model suggest that young university-educated workers have an employment rate about 12 percentage points higher after the reform as compared to older workers. In addition, we find that they are more likely to find employment in the service industry and in public or private enterprises. These estimates, which are robust to a host of robustness checks, support the idea that improvements in the quality of education reduce the mismatch between the quality of labor demanded and supplied in the high-skilled market.

Keywords: Higher education; employment; impact analysis; quality mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 O15 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2011-11, Revised 2012-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://gredi.recherche.usherbrooke.ca/wpapers/GREDI-1117.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Quality of Higher Education and the Labor Market in Developing Countries: Evidence from an Education Reform in Senegal (2015)
Working Paper: Quality of Higher Education and the Labor Market in Developing Countries: Evidence from an Education Reform in Senegal (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shr:wpaper:11-17

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