The aging population, changes in the labor market, and tightening public finances highlight the need to allocate educational resources as productively as possible. For this reason, education provision must respond to the needs of the labor market, and transitions between levels of education and into working life must be smooth and efficient. The cost-effectiveness and impact of educational investments must be assessed more carefully than ever before.
There are significant differences in the returns on education investments between different 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 this project is to assess the impact of different educational pathways in secondary and higher education on studies and labor market outcomes, as well as their costs and returns to individuals and society. In addition, the incentives of education funding systems and their impact on the targeting of education provision will be examined. The aim is to produce reliable, up-to-date, and comparable information on the effects of educational choices, the labor market relevance of educational provision, 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.
