Secondary Vocational Education and Earnings in Latin America[1]

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Abstract
Household survey data for II Latin American countries are used to assess earnings differentials by type of secondary education during the late 1980s. Introduction of the cost of the curriculum allows for the estimation of private and social rates of return to investment in education by type of secondary school curriculum. The paper documents mixed results. In some countries the private returns to vocational schooling are higher than the returns to general secondary schooling. Introducing differential cost of curriculum and estimating social returns to schooling results in much lower returns to vocational schooling.