Student work during secondary education, educational achievement, and later employment : a dynamic approach

This study examines the direct and indirect impact (via educational achievement) of student work during secondary education on later employment outcomes. To this end, we jointly model student work and later schooling and employment outcomes as discrete choices, while correcting for these outcomes’ unobserved determinants. Using unique longitudinal Belgian data, we find that pupils who work during the summer holidays are more likely to be employed three months after leaving school. This premium to student work in secondary education is higher when pupils also work during the school year. Decomposing this total effect shows that the direct return to student work during secondary education overcompensates its non-positive indirect effect via educational achievement. This effect is also found to decline over time, with the premium to a combination of work during the summer and the school year becoming statistically insignificant five years after graduation.