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The Labor Market Effects of an Educational Expansion. A Theoretical Model with Applications to Brazil

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  • David Jose Jaume
Abstract
Most countries are rapidly increasing the educational attainment of their workforce. This paper develops a novel framework to study, theoretically and empirically, the effects of an educational expansion on the occupational structure of employment and distinct aspects of the wage distributionâwage levels, wage gaps, and poverty and inequality indicatorsâwith an application to Brazil. I proceed in three steps. First, I provide some stylized facts of the Brazilian economy between 1995 and 2014: A large educational expansion took place; the occupational structure of employment remained surprisingly fixed; workers of all educational groupsâprimary or less, secondary, and universityâwere increasingly employed in occupations of lower ranking as measured by average wages over the period; and wages of primary educated workers increased while wages of more educated workers declined, bringing forth reductions in poverty and inequality. Second, I build a model that traces these heterogeneous patterns of occupations and wages to the educational expansion. The model assigns workers with three levels of education to a continuum of occupations that vary in complexity and are combined to produce a final good. I investigate three different policy experiments: An increase in university level, an increase in secondary level, and a simultaneous increase in both. The predicted effects depend on the policy analyzed. Considering the educational expansion that took place in Brazil (simultaneous increases in university and secondary levels), the model predicts qualitatively all the observed labor market changes in the occupational structure of employment and the wage distribution. Finally, I calibrate the model with the data from 1995 and show that, through its lens, the observed educational expansion in Brazil explains 66 percent of the occupational downgrading and around 80 percent of the changes in wage levels, inequality, and poverty during the period of 1995-2014.

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  • David Jose Jaume, 2017. "The Labor Market Effects of an Educational Expansion. A Theoretical Model with Applications to Brazil," 2017 Papers pja468, Job Market Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:jmp:jm2017:pja468
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    1. Amaral, Ernesto F. L. & Faustino, Samantha Haussmann Rodarte & Gonçalves, Guilherme Quaresma & Queiroz, Bernardo L, 2019. "Economic sector, demographic composition, educational attainment, and earnings in Brazil," OSF Preprints vz4sa, Center for Open Science.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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