samlet årgang - Økonomisk Institut - Københavns Universitet

THE EFFECT OF LABOUR MARKET CONDITIONS ON HIGHER EDUCATION COMPLETION 91
For the purposes of this paper, we extract and pool data for all 18-20 year-olds, who
graduated from high school in each year starting from 1980 and up to and including
1988. 7 These persons are followed from the year they graduate up to the last year of
the sample period, 1995. An individual is considered a high school graduate if the
highest degree attained in each year 1980-1988 is either a high school (gymnasium)
degree, a high school equivalent degree (HF), or a degree granted from a technical
high school, (HTX). Our sample size consists of 693 high school graduates.
The extracted sample consists of 901 spells of higher education taken by 693 high
school graduates who graduated sometime in the period 1980-1988. 8 This works out
to a total of 3,064 person-year observations. Of these 901 spells which on average have
a duration of 3.401 periods, 481 spells are completed by the survey end (1995) with an
average duration of 3.769 periods, 158 are censored with average duration of 4.475
periods and 262 are incomplete or drop-out spells with average duration of 2.076 periods.
That is, on average most drop-outs occur just after around 2 years of higher study.
Sample size limitations preclude disaggregation of the sample by type of program
(short, medium, long) but as different programs can be expected to have different average
completion times, as the next best solution, program-specific baseline hazards
are allowed, that is short, medium and long programs are assumed to have different
hazard shapes, although the effect of the covariates are still assumed to be the same.
Covariates that are hypothesized to significantly affect durations are background
variables, previous high school type and labour market variables. Among the background
variables are gender, living arrangements, that is, whether the individual is
cohabiting or not, and the presence of small children aged 0-2 years in the household.
Information on enrolment status in the year after graduating from high school in also
available, allowing a test of whether taking a sabbatical year affects time to subsequent
education completion (BREAK). We also include some program-specific information,
for example for whether or not the spell is the first educational program (FP) and
the time in years between programs (TBP) and its square in order to capture the effect
of breaks taken in between educational programs and the effect of switching programs
including non-linearities. 9 Financial aid and specific institutional details of the Danish
7. Note: The normal age of graduation from high school in Denmark is 19 years.
8. By higher education is meant either short-cycle, medium cycle or master’s degree/Ph.D. courses, that is,
ISCED levels 5-7. Short cycle courses, which are typically non-university educational courses, include
courses at the middle technician’s level in areas such as food, construction, clothing, electronics, medical
technology etc. Medium cycle higher-education courses (university equivalent) are qualifying courses in
areas such as nursing, teaching, journalism and include bachelor level educational programs as well. Longcycle
tertiary courses include traditional masters' and Ph.D. degree courses. Thus, by this definition, afterschool
vocational/apprenticeship courses are not considered higher education.
9. Other studies e.g. Albæk (2001) have shown a non-linear effect of time between high school and university
on the probability of completing the first of studies in the economic program at the University of Copenhagen.