IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sza/wpaper/wpapers136.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Modelling cognitive skills, ability and school quality to explain labour market earnings differentials

Author

Listed:
  • Cobus Burger

    (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)

  • Servaas van der Berg

    (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)

Abstract

Attempts to explain wage differences between race groups in South Africa are constrained by the fact that quality of education is known to differ greatly between groups, thus the unexplained portion of the wage gap may be much affected by such differences in education quality. Using a simulation model that utilises school-leaving (matric) examination results and educational attainment levels to generate estimates of education quality, we find that much of the wage gap can indeed be explained by differences in education quality. Thus the unexplained residual, often identified with labour market discrimination, usually greatly over-estimates such discrimination. This emphasises even more strongly the need for greater equity in educational outcomes, particularly in the often unobserved quality of education.

Suggested Citation

  • Cobus Burger & Servaas van der Berg, 2011. "Modelling cognitive skills, ability and school quality to explain labour market earnings differentials," Working Papers 08/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ekon.sun.ac.za/wpapers/2011/wp082011/wp-08-2011.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & John Knight, 2004. "Race and the Incidence of Unemployment in South Africa," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 198-222, May.
    2. Anne Case & Angus Deaton, 1999. "School Inputs and Educational Outcomes in South Africa," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 1047-1084.
    3. Anne Case & Motohiro Yogo, 1999. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Schools in South Africa," NBER Working Papers 7399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Doubell Chamberlain & Servaas van der Berg, 2002. "Earnings functions, labour market discrimination and quality of education in South Africa," Working Papers 02/2002, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    5. Servaas van der Berg & Louise Wood & Neil le Roux, 2002. "Differentiation in black education," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 289-306.
    6. Mia de Vos, 2011. "Quantitative and qualitative aspects of education in South Africa: An analysis using the National Income Dynamic Study," Working Papers 06/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    7. repec:pri:rpdevs:case_yogo_school_quality is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Branson & Julia Garlick & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt, 2012. "Education and Inequality: The South African Case," SALDRU Working Papers 75, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Servaas VAN DER BERG & Onelle BURGER, 2003. "Education And Socio‐Economic Differentials: A Study Of School Performance In The Western Cape," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 71(3), pages 496-522, September.
    2. O'Gorman, Melanie, 2010. "Racial earnings inequality in South Africa: An assessment of policy options," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 703-718, November.
    3. Nicola Branson & Julia Garlick & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt, 2012. "Education and Inequality: The South African Case," SALDRU Working Papers 75, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    4. Orazem, Peter F. & King, Elizabeth M., 2008. "Schooling in Developing Countries: The Roles of Supply, Demand and Government Policy," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 55, pages 3475-3559, Elsevier.
    5. Nikolov, Plamen & Jimi, Nusrat & Chang, Jerray, 2020. "The Importance of Cognitive Domains and the Returns to Schooling in South Africa: Evidence from Two Labor Surveys," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. Robert Hill, 2019. "Does IEB make the grade? Alternative testing methods and Educational outcomes: The case of the IEB in South Africa," Working Papers 201904, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    7. Patrick Duff & David Fryer, 2005. "Market Failure, Human Capital, and Job Search Dynamics in South Africa: The Case of Duncan Village," Working Papers 05098, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    8. Martine Mariotti & Juergen Meinecke, 2009. "Nonparametric Bounds on Returns to Education in South Africa: Overcoming Ability and Selection Bias," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2009-510, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    9. Fabrice Murtin & Thomas Laurent & Geoff Barnard & Dean Janse van Rensburg & Vijay Reddy & George Frempong & Lolita Winnaar, 2015. "Policy Determinants of School Outcomes under Model Uncertainty: Evidence from South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(3), pages 317-334, September.
    10. Wößmann, Ludger, 2001. "New Evidence on the Missing Resource-Performance Link in Education," Kiel Working Papers 1051, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Debra Shepherd, 2013. "A question of efficiency: decomposing South African reading test scores using PIRLS 2006," Working Papers 20/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    12. Selod, Harris & Zenou, Yves, 2003. "Private versus public schools in post-Apartheid South African cities: theory and policy implications," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 351-394, August.
    13. Asmus Zoch, 2017. "The effect of neighbourhoods and school quality on education and labour market outcomes in South Africa," Working Papers 08/2017, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    14. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2004. "Race, equity, and public schools in post-apartheid South Africa," FCND discussion papers 182, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Ludger Wößmann, 2003. "Schooling Resources, Educational Institutions and Student Performance: the International Evidence," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(2), pages 117-170, May.
    16. Tassew, W/Hanna & Alemu, Mekonnen & Jones, Nicola, 2009. "Education choices in Ethiopia: what determines whether poor households send their children to school?," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-80, February.
    17. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2005. "Race, equity, and public schools in post-Apartheid South Africa: Equal opportunity for all kids," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 213-233, April.
    18. Yamauchi, Futoshi & Nishiyama, Shinichi, 2005. "Community, inequality, and local public goods: Evidence from School Financing in South Africa," FCND discussion papers 201, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Megan Louw & Servaas van der Berg & Derek Yu, 2006. "Educational attainment and intergenerational social mobility in South Africa," Working Papers 09/2006, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    20. Servaas van der Berg & Megan Louw, 2007. "Lessons learnt from SACMEQII: South African student performance in regional context," Working Papers 16/2007, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    South Africa; education quality; wages; labour market; Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition; discrimination; economics of education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Melt van Schoor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desunza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.