IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17938.html

The Effects of Exposure to a Large-Scale Recession on Higher Education and Early Labor Market Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Choi, Eleanor J.

    (Hanyang University)

  • Hwang, Jisoo

    (Harvard University)

  • Son, Hyelim

    (University of Seoul)

Abstract

This study examines the effects of timing of exposure to the Asian financial crisis on higher education and early labor market outcomes. We estimate a generalized difference-in-differences model exploiting variation in age at exposure and regional severity of the recession in South Korea. Using the Census and Youth Panel data, we find that individuals from hard-hit regions are less likely to attain a college education, tend to shift away from humanities to STEM majors, and have lower-quality first jobs, than their peers in the same cohort. These effects are more pronounced among individuals who experienced the recession at younger ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Eleanor J. & Hwang, Jisoo & Son, Hyelim, 2025. "The Effects of Exposure to a Large-Scale Recession on Higher Education and Early Labor Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 17938, IZA Network @ LISER.
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17938
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17938.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patricia Rice, 1999. "The impact of local labour markets on investment in further education: Evidence from the England and Wales youth cohort studies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 287-312.
    2. Jinyoung Kim & Jong-Wha Lee & Kwanho Shin, 2016. "A Model of Gender Inequality and Economic Growth," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 475, Asian Development Bank.
    3. Daiji Kawaguchi & Ayako Kondo, 2020. "The Effects Of Graduating From College During A Recession On Living Standards," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(1), pages 283-293, January.
    4. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    5. Kahn, Lisa B., 2010. "The long-term labor market consequences of graduating from college in a bad economy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 303-316, April.
    6. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Erik Hurst & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2018. "Housing Booms and Busts, Labor Market Opportunities, and College Attendance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(10), pages 2947-2994, October.
    7. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    8. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2008. "Formulating, Identifying and Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    9. Gregory, Gary & Harvie, Charles & Lee, Hyun-Hoon, 2002. "Korean SMEs in the Wake of the Financial Crisis: Strategies, Constraints and Performance in a Global Economy," Economics Working Papers wp02-12, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    10. Contoyannis, Paul & Jones, Andrew M., 2004. "Socio-economic status, health and lifestyle," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 965-995, September.
    11. Bedard, Kelly & Herman, Douglas A., 2008. "Who goes to graduate/professional school? The importance of economic fluctuations, undergraduate field, and ability," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 197-210, April.
    12. Neel Rao, 2016. "The Impact Of Macroeconomic Conditions In Childhood On Adult Labor Market Outcomes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1425-1444, July.
    13. Charles, Kerwin Kofi & DeCicca, Philip, 2008. "Local labor market fluctuations and health: Is there a connection and for whom?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1532-1550, December.
    14. Schaller, Jessamyn & Stevens, Ann Huff, 2015. "Short-run effects of job loss on health conditions, health insurance, and health care utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 190-203.
    15. Mr. Kenneth H Kang & Ms. Hong Liang & Mr. Henry Ma & Mr. Anthony J. Richards & Mr. Ajai Chopra & Ms. Meral Karasulu, 2001. "From Crisis to Recovery in Korea: Strategy, Achievements, and Lessons," IMF Working Papers 2001/154, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Eleonora Porreca & Lucia Rizzica & Marco Tonello, 2026. "A great depression? Students' educational aspirations and investments in the aftermath of the Great Recession," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1528, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    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. Bryan A. Stuart, 2022. "The Long-Run Effects of Recessions on Education and Income," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 42-74, January.
    2. By Marianne Haraldsvik & Bjarne Strøm, 2022. "Adult skills and labor market conditions during teenage years: cross-country evidence from international surveys [Is post-secondary education a safe port and for whom? Evidence from Canadian data]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 894-919.
    3. Choi, Eleanor Jawon & Choi, Jaewoo & Son, Hyelim, 2020. "The long-term effects of labor market entry in a recession: Evidence from the Asian financial crisis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    4. Jennifer Graves & Zoë Kuehn, 2022. "Higher education decisions and macroeconomic conditions at age eighteen," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 171-241, May.
    5. Diana Alessandrini & Bharat Diwakar, 2023. "The Intergenerational Effects of Recessions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(4), pages 1060-1087, December.
    6. Franziska Hampf & Marc Piopiunik & Simon Wiederhold, 2020. "The Effects of Graduating from High School in a Recession: College Investments, Skill Formation, and Labor-Market Outcomes," CESifo Working Paper Series 8252, CESifo.
    7. Jeremy Kirk, 2024. "The Impact of Parental Resources on Human Capital Investment and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Great Recession," Working Papers 24-34, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    8. Ganguli, Ina & Haidar, Jamal Ibrahim & Khwaja, Asim Ijaz & Stemper, Samuel & Zafar, Basit, 2024. "Economic shocks and skill acquisition: Evidence from a national online learning platform at the onset of COVID-19," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Meghir, Costas & Palme, Mårten & Schnabel, Marieke, 2011. "The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 6142, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Roland Fryer & Steven Levitt & John List & Anya Samek, 2020. "Introducing CogX: A New Preschool Education Program Combining Parent and Child Interventions," Framed Field Experiments 00718, The Field Experiments Website.
    11. Arthi, Vellore & Parman, John, 2021. "Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Colombo, Emilio & Rotondi, Valentina & Stanca, Luca, 2018. "Macroeconomic conditions and health: Inspecting the transmission mechanism," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 29-37.
    13. Jere R. Behrman & Dante Contreras & Maria Isidora Palma & Esteban Puentes, 2024. "Socioeconomic Disparities for Early Childhood Anthropometrics and Vocabulary and Socio-emotional Skills: Dynamic Evidence from Chilean Longitudinal Data," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(1), pages 1-28, February.
    14. David Pérez-Mesa & à ngel S. Marrero, 2024. "Adult health and inequality of opportunity in Spain," Working Papers 671, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Daniel Hartley & Kwan Ok Lee, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Neighborhood Change on Incumbent Families," Working Paper Series WP-2019-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    16. Sonia Bhalotra & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Nina Schwarz, 2022. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance, and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1138-1156, November.
    17. Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2016. "Does Leaving School in an Economic Downturn Persistently Affect Body Weight? Evidence from Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 122-148, January.
    18. Pinar Mine Gunes & Magda Tsaneva, 2022. "Labour market conditions and adult health in Mexico," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 106-137, February.
    19. González, Libertad & Trommlerová, Sofia, 2022. "Cash transfers before pregnancy and infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    20. Bednar, Steven & Gicheva, Dora, 2013. "Tax benefits for graduate education: Incentives for whom?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 181-197.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:iza:izadps:dp17938. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.