Added value of post-secondary education in Estonia

Abstract

Education is seen in the human capital literature as one of the determining factors for labour market outcomes (Blázquez et al., 2018), measured through multiple variables. The aim of the current study is to examine the change in the earnings of graduates from Estonian post-secondary education institutions. This is achieved by comparing graduates who had studied from 2013 to 2016 in four fields: engineering, information technology, economics and natural sciences. To assess the change in pre- and post-entry earnings difference-in-differences regression was used. The results indicate there are differences between disciplines in terms of added value. In economics gender differences have the smallest and entrepreneurial activities the largest impact for the change in earnings. The study contributes to our understanding of added value of post-secondary education by combining educational, tax and social data, and analysing the change in graduates’ earnings pre- and post-entry. Keywords: Post-secondary education; earnings; value added; Estonia; labour market success