A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

/pdf/education-at-a-glance-m5vl7o68j5.pdf

Education at a Glance

The mean and standard deviation in performance on math test scores are only slightly larger for males than for females. Despite minor differences in mean performance, many more boys than girls perform at the right tail of the distribution. This gender gap has been documented for a series of math tests including the AP calculus test, the mathematics SAT, and the quantitative portion of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). The objective of this paper is not to discuss whether the mathematical skills of males and females differ, be it a result of nurture or nature. Rather we argue that the reported test scores do not necessarily match the gender differences in math skills. We will present results that suggest that the evidence of a large gender gap in mathematics performance at high percentiles in part may be explained by the differential manner in which men and women respond to competitive test-taking environments. The effects in mixed-sex settings range from women failing to perform well in competitions, to women shying away from environments in which they have to compete. We find that the response to competition differs for men and women, and in the examined environment, gender difference in competitive performance does not reflect the difference in noncompetitive performance. We argue that the competitive pressures associated with test taking may result in performances that do not reflect those of less-competitive settings. Of particular concern is that the distortion is likely to vary by gender and that it may cause gender differences in performance to be particularly large in mathematics and for the right tail of the performance distribution. Thus the gender gap in math test scores may exaggerate the math advantage of males over females.

/pdf/explaining-the-gender-gap-in-math-test-scores-the-role-of-2juodj7b4n.pdf

Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Test Scores: The Role of Competition

This paper studies a labor market where workers search for both more productive and more secure employment. In this environment, an unemployment spell begets future unemployment spells and the hazard rate into unemployment declines with tenure. In a laissez-faire economy, workers overvalue job security relative to productivity and unemployment benefits can increase welfare. I estimate the framework on German Social Security data and use it to study quantitatively the consequences of job loss. The model explains the large and highly persistent response in wages and employment known as the “unemployment scar”. The key driver of the long term losses is the original loss of job security and its interaction with the evolution of human capital.

/pdf/searching-for-job-security-and-the-consequences-of-job-loss-198lrcrj0d.pdf

Searching for Job Security and the Consequences of Job Loss

Using 1979–2012 CPS data for the United States and 1975–2012 NES data for Great Britain, we study wage behavior in both countries, with particular attention to the Great Recession. Real wages are procyclical in both countries, but the procyclicality of real wages varies across recessions, and does so differently between the two countries, in ways that defy simple explanations. We devote particular attention to the hypothesis that downward nominal wage rigidity plays an important role in cyclical employment and unemployment fluctuations. We conclude that downward wage rigidity may be less binding and have lesser allocative consequences than is often supposed.

/pdf/wage-adjustment-in-the-great-recession-and-other-downturns-2y57b7ilvz.pdf

Wage Adjustment in the Great Recession and Other Downturns: Evidence from the United States and Great Britain

We survey the literature on income mobility, aiming to provide an integrated discussion of mobility within and between generations. We review mobility concepts, descriptive devices, measurement methods, data sources, and recent empirical evidence.

Chapter 10 – Income Mobility

This paper examines the determinants of mathematical achievement among primary school children. Previous studies have found that boys perform better in maths than girls, particularly at the upper end of the distribution. It has been suggested in the literature that differences in the size of the maths gap across countries may be explained by differences in the prevalence of single-sex schooling. The Irish education system is interesting both for the fact that a sizeable proportion of children attend single-sex schools, and because these single-sex schools are part of the general educational system, rather than serving a particular socio-economic group. We exploit this fact to test whether the gender composition of schools affects the maths differential at the top of the distribution. In keeping with research on other countries, we find a significant maths gap in favour of boys, but contrary to suggestions in the literature, our results provide no evidence that single-sex schooling reduces the gap. If anything, the gender differential is larger for children educated in single-sex schools than in co-educational schools. These findings are not affected by the inclusion of a proxy for early childhood ability or by the use of instrumental variables to control for potentially endogenous school choice.

Gender, Single-Sex Schooling and Maths Achievement

How big is the pay gap between men and women in the Irish labour market? Does it reflect discrimination in employment, or problems faced by women in staying in the labour market? What policies will help to ensure quality of opportunity between the sexes? These are among the questions addressed in this book. The authors draw on nationwide household surveys to shed new light on these issues.

How unequal? : men and women in the Irish labour market

In recent years there has been a rapid growth in the number of studies that have used the GMM estimator to decompose the earnings covariance structure into its permanent and transitory parts. Using a heterogeneous growth model of earnings, we consider the performance of the estimator in this context. We use Monte Carlo simulations to examine the sensitivity of parameter identification to key features such as panel length, sample size, the degree of persistence of earnings shocks and the specification of the earnings model. We show that long panels allow the identification of the model, even when persistence in transitory shocks is high. Short panels, on the other hand, are insufficient to identify individual parameters of the model even with moderate levels of persistence.

/pdf/identification-of-the-covariance-structure-of-earnings-using-g5go87rva0.pdf

Identification of the covariance structure of earnings using the GMM estimator

The present study has two main aims. One is to obtain some more recent results for labour supply elasticities in Ireland than 1994 and the second is to compare results over time; this requires that econometric model specifications be consistent between years, as otherwise, any differences in estimated parameters would be difficult to interpret.
Women and men are analysed separately in order to allow for the generally perceived differences in women’s and men’s labour supply behaviour. This is standard practice.
The decision to separate those with very low education levels (no second level qualifications) from others was less standard and therefore requires some explanation. In Callan and Doris (1999), it was established that, for men in particular, there was a marked difference in behaviour between individuals according to their educational qualifications. This may be because the nature of non-participation is different for unqualified men than for those with some formal educational qualifications. Unqualified non-participants are significantly more likely to record themselves as being retired than more qualified men; 42 per cent of low education non-participants reported themselves to be retired in 1994 (58 per cent in 1998) compared to 30 per cent (36 per cent in 1998) of better educated non-participants. This may be because the difficulty that older, unqualified men face in retraining after a period of unemployment makes them more likely to leave the labour market. It may also be because low skill work tends to be more physical, and therefore more difficult to carry out as the individual ages. More qualified men are more likely to be in education than to retire – 23 per cent of non-participants in 1994 and 41 per cent in 1998 – whereas practically none of the lesser educated non-participants were in education.4

The Changing Responsiveness of Labour Supply During the 1990s

This evaluation stems from an interest from those working on and administering the HEAR and DARE schemes into the effectiveness of the schemes in widening participation in higher education of under-represented groups. A focus of Irish Higher Education (HE) policy is orientated toward the objective of promoting equality of access to higher education, with particular targeted initiatives for under-represented groups. There has been extensive research conducted in Ireland on the issue of Widening Participation (WP), including various evaluative reports on access initiatives of recent years. In addition, universities and colleges have at times undertaken substantial research on their own access programmes and students. However, just three studies to date have focused on the experiences of the HEAR and DARE cohorts, programmes which have been in place in their current format since just 2009. This evaluation seeks address the gap in our knowledge of HEAR and DARE. The DARE/HEAR Strategic Development Group (SDG) has commissioned us to evaluate the following: 

• To what extent do the schemes meet the target groups’ requirements? 
• How do the schemes contribute to the realisation of institutional and national targets? and 
• What can be determined about the sustainability, scaleability and replicability of the schemes? 

In terms of the data from which this evaluation is based, we adopt a mixed method approach, drawing on a range of existing administrative data sources collected by the HEAR and DARE schemes, the Central Applications Office (CAO) and the Higher Education Authority (HEA); alongside new qualitative data collection with HEAR and DARE students currently in higher education and a number of key internal and external stakeholders. The evaluation, in adopting a mixed method approach, draws on the strengths of these two methods to allow for a better understanding of the profile and experiences of school leavers who access the schemes.

An Evaluation of the HEAR and DARE Supplementary Admission Routes to Higher Education

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