Vocational secondary schooling, occupational choice, and earnings in Brazil

Empirical studies on the efficacy of vocational education, mainly in developing countries - a literature now comprising dozens of evaluation studies - have been fairly unanimous in recording a negative verdict on the costs and benefits of vocational secondary education, particularly compared with traditional academic school. The authors, in this study set in Brazil, reach a different conclusion. Like a number of recent evaluation studies (for Hong Kong, Israel, and the United States), this one challenges the established orthodoxy by reporting findings far more supportive of vocational schooling. Unlike traditional approaches, it focuses on the relationship between field of vocational study and subsequent occupation. The authors report that students who complete vocational school and work in related fields have significant earnings advantages over students who do not work in fields related to what they studied and over students who complete academic school.