Returns to education in European countries. Evidence from the European Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

Abstract

Within human capital literature, an important line of empirical research is concerned with estimating the returns to human capital investments; above all, the returns to education have received considerable attention lately. Typically, empirical work is focused on establishing relations between human capital indicators such as education and training, on the one hand, and outcomes as wages, employment opportunities or job quality on the other hand. The private rate of return to education is by far the most analysed of the returns. Despite the existence of many comparative studies, there is still a great demand for research evidence on the private returns to education. In this paper, we contribute to the debate on returns to education by estimating the wage differentials associated with educational attainment for 24 European countries, using the results of the European Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC).