Human Capital and The Economic Cycle: Enrollment in Education highest in the European Union in the period 2000-2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46553/ensayos.3.3.2021.p77-105Keywords:
unemployment, business cycles, higher education, human capitalAbstract
The current study aims to analyze the cyclical behavior of enrollment in higher education
of young adults. For this, a panel data is constructed for the countries of the European
Union between 2000 and 2018. First, I find statistically significant effects of the business
cycle on enrollment, which differ according to sociodemographic characteristics such as
age and sex. In particular, for the enrollment of young people between the ages of 20
and 30, the results show both pro-cyclical effects of GDP per capita and counter-cyclical
effects of the unemployment rate, although not for other age ranges. When separately
analyzing enrollment in different types of programs, it is found that in short-cycle,
bachelor's and master's degree programs, female enrollment is more affected than male
enrollment by variations in GDP per capita. There are also differences in the behavior of
enrollment according to the level of GDP per capita and financial depth of the country.
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Ensayos de Política Económica