Multidimensional Human Capital, Wages and Endogenous Employment Status in Ghana
Niels-Hugo (Hugo) Blunch
No 3906, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
Previous studies of labor market outcomes such as employment and wages have mostly been limited to investigating the impact of formal schooling only and, as a consequence, have seldom considered skills or alternative routes to acquiring skills, such as adult literacy programs, or other types of education. This paper examines these issues for Ghana, by estimating the joint effects of formal schooling, literacy and numeracy skills, and adult literacy programs on employment and wage outcomes. Wage and employment status equations are estimated jointly, allowing employment status to be endogenous. Substantial returns to basic cognitive skills are established, while the education system – especially the lower levels of formal education – is found to be relatively successful in creating these skills. At the same time the results hint at there being substantial returns to skills other than basic literacy and numeracy. These skills appear to be produced mostly from technical and vocational education and training and at higher levels of formal education. Adult literacy participants are less likely to be economically inactive and more likely to be self-employed, hinting at the income-generating activities component of these programs having indirect effects on wages through its effect on labor market participation, especially for females, individuals with no formal education, and in urban areas.
Keywords: cognitive and non-cognitive skills; literacy and numeracy; human capital; employment status; wage equations; adult literacy programs; formal education; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Published - published in: Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar (eds.), Labor Markets and Economic Development, London and New York: Routledge, 2009
Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3906.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3906
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().