Date of Award

8-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

Committee Chair/Advisor

Dr. Devon Gorry

Committee Member

Dr. Jonathan Leganza

Committee Member

Dr. Curtis Simon

Committee Member

Dr. Aspen Gorry

Abstract

The dissertation consists of three essays: the first two discuss the effect of American high school vocational education on individuals' labor market and educational outcomes, and the third essay explores the effect of unilateral divorce laws on women's labor force participation rates. In the first chapter, treating vocational class choice as a continuous variable, I used family-fixed effects to investigate the average effect of American high school vocational classes on students' labor market and educational outcomes. The findings indicate that high school vocational classes significantly decrease the likelihood of attending a four-year college but do not significantly affect other educational outcomes. This paper also finds that the positive effects of vocational classes on labor market outcomes are not short-lived; they persist into individuals' mid-thirties. The second chapter examines heterogeneity in returns to vocational education and finds a distinct divergence in labor market outcomes across genders, with males from relatively lower socioeconomic backgrounds experiencing higher returns from vocational classes. The third chapter uses difference-in-differences to study the causal effect of unilateral divorce laws on women's labor force participation rates. Overall, there is no suggestive evidence for the effect of unilateral divorce laws, but examination of the heterogeneous effects shows that unmarried women in the middle cohorts are significantly more likely to participate in the labor force.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.