Lifelong learning is often promoted in ageing societies, but little is known about its returns or governments’ ability to advance it. This paper evaluates the effects of a large-scale randomized field experiment issuing vouchers for adult education in Switzerland. We find no significant average effects of voucher-induced adult education on earnings, employment, and subsequent education one year after treatment. But effects are heterogeneous: Low-education individuals are most likely to profit from adult education, but least likely to use the voucher. The findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of existing untargeted voucher programs in promoting labor market outcomes through adult education.
Effects of Adult Education Vouchers on the Labor Market: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
Guido Schwerdt,Dolores Messer,Ludger Woessmann,Stefan C. Wolter
Published 2011 in Social Science Research Network
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2011
- Venue
Social Science Research Network
- Publication date
2011-01-13
- Fields of study
Economics, Education
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- adult education
Education or training undertaken after initial schooling, often in adulthood and outside the regular school system.
Aliases: continuing education, adult learning
- adult education vouchers
Vouchers issued to adults to subsidize participation in adult education courses or programs.
Aliases: vouchers for adult education, adult-education vouchers
- earnings
Participants' labor income used as an outcome measure in the evaluation.
Aliases: wages, income
- employment
Labor market participation status used as an outcome measure in the evaluation.
Aliases: job status, work participation
- low-education individuals
Adults with relatively low prior educational attainment, analyzed as a subgroup in the heterogeneity results.
Aliases: low-educated individuals, less-educated individuals
- randomized field experiment
A field experiment that assigns voucher access at random to estimate causal effects in a real-world setting.
Aliases: RCT, randomized experiment
- subsequent education
Additional education or training taken after the voucher intervention, tracked as a later outcome.
Aliases: further education, later education
- untargeted voucher programs
Voucher schemes distributed without targeting specific educational or demographic subgroups.
Aliases: universal voucher programs, non-targeted voucher programs
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