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This study explores the effects on earnings of overeducation, required education, and undereducation (ORU) in the Australian graduate labour market, using data from the 1999–2009 Graduate Destination Surveys. The Vahey [2000. “The Great Canadian Training Robbery: Evidence on the Returns to Educational Mismatch.”Economics of Education Review19 (2): 219–227] dummy variable specification, which permits an assessment of ORU earnings effects at different extents of educational mismatch, is adopted in the analysis. The findings reveal that while ORU earnings effects vary considerably across different extents of mismatch, earnings penalties were especially large in lower job categories. There is a strong tendency for earnings to follow jobs and for the distinction among types of university qualifications to lessen the more extensive the overeducation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the differences in school (NAPLAN) outcomes between New South Wales and Queensland. It shows that there are pronounced differences in Year 3 NAPLAN results between these states, though these dissipate when later class years are considered. The reasons for these state effects in school outcomes are explored using an empirical framework grounded in the regression discontinuity literature. There is no systematic evidence of school-specific unobservables that are linearly related to the distance of schools from the New South Wales–Queensland border that account for this state effect. In other words, the lower outcomes of schools in Queensland relative to schools in New South Wales appear to be a pure institutional phenomenon. This conclusion carries over to the various sensitivity tests undertaken based on the partition of the sample by school sector and by distance from the border. Accordingly, the border effects are expected to be eroded by the recent reforms to the school starting age in Queensland and by the national curriculum currently proposed for implementation in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The decision to invest in education is influenced by a large number of economic, social, family, personal and institutional factors. Many of these changed in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. Several of the more important of these changes, such as the Equal Pay for Equal Work decision of 1969, the Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value decision of 1972 and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984, are not expected to have impacted equally on the schooling decisions of males and females. The broader economic environment of this period also seems to have favoured females. Using the Youth in Transition Survey, this paper attempts to explain differences in the schooling decisions of two cohorts, namely individuals born in 1961 and 1970, which would have made their school-leaving decisions during the 1970s and 1980s. The aims are to establish whether the way in which education decisions are made differ across cohorts, and to assess whether any such differences can be related to the institutional reforms and labour market changes that occurred over the 1960-1980 period. The analyses show that females have a higher probability of completing year 12 than males and the gender difference in rates of year 12 completion widened over the decade under review. The increase in the probability of females completing year 12 relative to that of males is due almost entirely to differential rates of change in the characteristics of males and females. Changes in the estimated coefficients play a minor role in explaining the gender difference in school-leaving decisions. This suggests that major changes in the labour market with a focus on females per se during the 1970s and 1980s have had little impact on the difference in school-leaving decisions between males and females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been significant increases in female participation in secondary and higher education in Australia over the past 39 years. To account for these changes, models of educational attainment were estimated for all individuals as well as for females from different age groups.The results reveal that family-related characteristics play a major role in the education decision. There is evidence of cohort effects in the process determining female educational attainment. The results suggest that changes in female educational attainment may be linked to the Equal Pay for Equal Work and Equal Pay for Work of EqualValue decisions of 1969 and 1972, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]