A competing risks analysis of the determinants of low completion rates in the Canadian apprenticeship system (original) (raw)
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Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training, 2013
Background: The number of registered apprentices in Canada more than doubled between 1995 and 2007, yet successful completion of apprenticeship programs increased by only about one-third as much. Uncovering the factors related to low completion rates is a necessary first step to ensuring that today's skilled labour is replaced in the future. Methods: This study utilizes a series of multinomial probit models and the 2007 National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS) to investigate the completion behaviour of individuals enrolled in apprenticeship programs. These behaviours include continuing, discontinuing (or quitting), and completing programs. The NAS contains detailed demographic information regarding respondents' backgrounds and the characteristics of apprenticeship programs. Results: Program completion is positively related to a variety of demographic characteristics, including being married and having completed at least a high school education prior to beginning an apprenticeship. Males and females have similar completion probabilities. Completion is negatively related to time in the apprenticeship program (beyond the normal program length) and the number of employers during training. Type of technical training and having a journeyperson always present enhance the probability of completion. The regional unemployment rate has little effect on whether an individual completes an apprenticeship program or not. There are also large provincial and trade group differences. Conclusions: Although this research has identified a number of factors correlated with apprenticeship completion, further research could address the benefits of completion such as wages and probability of employment. A more detailed examination of the variety of obstacles encountered by apprentices during training may also be useful in redesigning programs to enhance completion.
Returns to Apprenticeship: Analysis based on the 2006 Census
2012
We utilize the 2006 Census -- the first large-scale, representative Canadian data set to include information on apprenticeship certification -- to compare the returns from apprenticeships with those from other educational pathways (high school graduation, non-apprenticeship trades and community college). An apprenticeship premium prevails for males but a deficit is evident for females, with this pattern prevailing across the quantiles
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Background: The number of registered apprentices in Canada more than doubled between 1995 and 2007, yet successful completion of apprenticeship programs increased by only about one-third as much. Uncovering the factors related to low completion rates is a necessary first step to ensuring that today's skilled labour is replaced in the future. Methods: This study utilizes a series of multinomial probit models and the 2007 National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS) to investigate the completion behaviour of individuals enrolled in apprenticeship programs. These behaviours include continuing, discontinuing (or quitting), and completing programs. The NAS contains detailed demographic information regarding respondents' backgrounds and the characteristics of apprenticeship programs. Results: Program completion is positively related to a variety of demographic characteristics, including being married and having completed at least a high school education prior to beginning an apprenticeship. Males and females have similar completion probabilities. Completion is negatively related to time in the apprenticeship program (beyond the normal program length) and the number of employers during training. Type of technical training and having a journeyperson always present enhance the probability of completion. The regional unemployment rate has little effect on whether an individual completes an apprenticeship program or not. There are also large provincial and trade group differences. Conclusions: Although this research has identified a number of factors correlated with apprenticeship completion, further research could address the benefits of completion such as wages and probability of employment. A more detailed examination of the variety of obstacles encountered by apprentices during training may also be useful in redesigning programs to enhance completion.
The Persistence Behaviour of Registered Apprentices: Who Continues, Quits, or Completes Programs?
2010
We utilize a multinomial probit model and the 2007 National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS) to investigate the persistence behaviour of individuals enrolled in apprenticeship programs. These behaviours include continuing, discontinuing (or quitting) and completing programs. The NAS contains detailed demographic data as well as other data regarding respondents' backgrounds and apprenticeship characteristics. Our results show that program completion is positively related to being married, having fewer children, being non-Aboriginal and not a visible minority, not being disabled and having a higher level of education before the beginning of the program. Completion is negatively related to time in the program (beyond the normal program length) and the number of employers. Type of technical training and having a journeyperson always present enhance the probability of completion. The regional unemployment rate has little effect on completion. There are also large provincial and trade group differences that are generally consistent with the sparse literature on this topic. Males and females have similar completion probabilities when we control for other influences. __________________________________________ We thank the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researchers Network (CLSRN) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) for supporting this research. We would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer and Grant Schellenberg for useful comments as well as participants at the January 2010 HRSDC-CLSRN Apprenticeship Workshop in Vancouver.
Does apprenticeship improve job opportunities? A regression discontinuity approach
Empirical Economics, 2017
Does Apprenticeship Improve Job Opportunities? A Regression Discontinuity Approach * In Italy the reforms of the last twenty years shaped a dual labour market with different levels of employment protection for permanent jobs, on one side, and temporary jobs like apprenticeships and fixed-term contracts, on the other side. The main difference between apprentices and other types of temporary workers is that the former should receive firmprovided training. The firm incentive in hiring apprentices consists in the possibility to pay lower wages and in a reduction in labour taxes. Using an Italian administrative longitudinal dataset containing information on all the job contracts started between January 2009 and June 2012, we estimate hazard functions towards permanent jobs and contrast the ones of apprentices with those of other types of temporary workers. The hazard function estimates based on a regression discontinuity approach affirm that apprenticeships are sorts of "long entrance halls" towards open-ended contracts, especially within the same firm where the apprenticeship was performed.
Dropping out and revising educational decisions: Evidence from vocational education
Previous research on educational decisions has almost exclusively focused on individual decisions to start a particular education. At the same time, the decision to revise an educational choice has hardly been analyzed, unless it is the decision to drop out. However, dropping out is only one possibility of revising an educational choice. In this paper, we distinguish three different educational revisions, namely, dropping out, changing and upgrading. We analyze the determinants of these three different choices in apprenticeship training using hazard rate models for the empirical analysis. In a first research step, we carry out a simple hazard rate estimation of the decision to drop out vs. staying in the educational system because dropping out is associated with considerable risks, unlike the other two choices. Our most important finding here is that dropout decisions seem to be driven to a considerable amount by financial considerations such as the opportunity cost of apprenticeshi...
Comparing Outcomes: Apprenticeship in Canada, the United States, and Australia
2013
According to the labor theory of economics, individuals are paid their marginal value product—the extra amount of value that they contribute to the production process. This productive value has two critical components: genetic and environmental. No one can argue that the skills of a Tiger Woods or a Tom Hanks are at least partially, if not largely, the result of inherent skill. No amount of practice will allow the average person to strike a golf ball with the ease and precision of a Tiger Woods or slip so gracefully into character as a Tom Hanks. Coupled with this genetic disposition are also years of training, which provide both general and specific skills. General skills are those skills that can be taken from firm to firm, while specific skills are those that are so specific to a particular firm that they cannot be readily transferred. Becker (1964) agrees with Pigou (1912) that firms will not offer general skills training, as individuals are already paid their marginal value pro...
Good Occupation - Bad Occupation? The Quality of Apprenticeship Training
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Small average wage effects of employer and/or occupation changes mask large differences between occupation groups and apprentices with different schooling backgrounds. Apprentices in commerce and trading occupations strongly profit from an employer change. Employer and occupation changers in industrial occupations face large wage disadvantages however. We are the first to analyse these differences. Quality differences of apprenticeship quality between training firms that have been mainly discussed so far are small, however. This paper also explains differences between previous findings by comparing their estimation strategies. It demonstrates that selectivity into occupations and changers, unobserved heterogeneity between occupations, and the sample selection matter and proposes several improvements in the estimation technique to measure apprenticeship quality.
High school apprenticeship in Canada: exploring social mobility
2011
This article explores the pathways followed by former high school apprentices in Ontario and Alberta, Canada a few years after leaving school. The aim of most provincial high school apprenticeship programs is to provide an alternative pathway for youth who may not otherwise stay in high school to earn a diploma while gaining useful work skills which are in high demand. There is therefore a social mobility aim in programs. The main questions addressed in this paper are: To what extent does high school apprenticeship fulfill its goal of targeting youth who are 'at risk' of not completing high school? And under what conditions can such programs support upward social mobility for youth? Context Youth transitions from secondary education to working life have become a focus for policy makers in most OECD countries in recent decades. A study of transition systems across 14 countries (OECD, 2000) suggested that effective transition systems are characterized by well organized pathways that connect initial education with work and further study and widespread opportunities to combine workplace experience with education. They provide good information and guidance and tightly knit safety nets for those at risk. In Canada, most provinces support a range of secondary school initiatives intended to facilitate youth transitions particularly for non-college bound youth, the 'forgotten half' according to a 1988 US report by the William T. Grant Foundation. Provincial education departments have encouraged school authorities to more clearly articulate different career pathways for youth, making connections between curriculum and labour market destinations more transparent. One way to do this is though experiential learning opportunities, including cooperative education, work experience programs, internships, and high school apprenticeship programs (Taylor, 2007). High school apprenticeship programs allow students to work toward their high school diploma and apprenticeship certification at the same time. It is hoped that attracting younger apprentices will improve apprenticeship completion rates, which have been lower than for other post-secondary options (Sharpe, 2003) while also raising high school completion rates. The Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) allows students 16 years of age or older to earn credits toward their high school diploma while