Population ageing, changes in the labour market and tightening public finances highlight the need to allocate educational resources as productively as possible. For this reason, educational provision must meet labour market needs and ensure efficient transitions between levels of education and into working life. The cost-effectiveness and impact of educational investments must be assessed more carefully than ever before.
There are significant differences in the returns on educational investments between fields and levels of education, but Finland lacks a comprehensive review of the progress of educational pathways, labour market returns and costs based on individual-level register data.
The aim of the project is to assess the impacts of different secondary and tertiary educational pathways on studies and labour market outcomes, as well as their costs and returns for the individual and society. In addition, the incentives of education financing systems and their effects on the allocation of educational provision will be investigated. The goal is to produce reliable, up-to-date and comparable information on the effects of educational choices, the labor market relevance of educational offerings, the opportunity costs of education, the effects of gap years and the effects of financial incentives for educational institutions.
Etla is implementing the project in collaboration with The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE, which is leading the project.
