Highly and steady or low and rising? Life cycle earnings patterns in vocational and general education.

In this paper, we compare experience-earnings profiles of employees with vocational and generaleducation background in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, three countries withfundamentally different education systems. Using Mixed-Effects Linear Regression Models we showthat earnings of vocationally educated employees are higher in the initial phase of their career.However, those with a general education background catch up over time in the labor market.Life-cycle differences in earnings are more pronounced in Germany than in the United Kingdom andthe Netherlands.