Much attention is focused on finding ways to encourage females to study STEM in school and college but what actually happens once women complete a STEM degree? We use the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey to trace out gender differences in STEM persistence over the career. We find a continuous...

In recent years there has been a plethora of empirical papers by economists concerning the effects of academic rank in school or college on subsequent outcomes of students. We review this recent literature, describing the difficult identification and measurement issues, the assumptions and...

Much evidence suggests that having more education leads to higher earnings in the labor market. However, there is little evidence about whether having more education causes employees to experience lower earnings volatility or shelters them from the adverse effects of recessions. We use a large...

In many countries, subsidies towards higher education and financial aid to students from poorer backgrounds have reduced socio-economic status (SES) gaps in undergraduate study. The increasing importance of graduate studies that are typically more expensive may, however, provide a new avenue for...

This paper looks at the joint impact of labour market risk and selection in to the labour market on returns to education. Accounting for non-employment risk leads to substantial changes in returns while wage risk has little impact. The risk- adjusted returns to both high school and college for...

This ESRI research outlines the challenges of evaluating the impact of community development programmes, specifically focusing on the interventions with Local Community Groups (LCGs), as part of the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP).

We use a unique question from the Irish Labour Force Survey that captures the reasons for workers being paid below the minimum wage. Compared to existing work, this allows us to more precisely identify sub-minimum wage workers. We find that 5.6 percent of minimum wage workers are paid below the...