The effect of the School-to-Work Programme on the employment of vocational high school graduates

We examine the effects of the 2011 Korean School-to-Work Programme on the career choices of vocational high school students. To identify the causal impacts, we utilize the difference-in-differences method, comparing vocational high school graduates to academic high school graduates between 2011 and 2012. The results show that the policy increased the employment rate of vocational high school graduates by 36%. The proportion of graduates advancing to postsecondary education decreased by a similar magnitude, implying that the policy indeed altered the career choices of a significant number of vocational high school students, leading them to pursue employment rather than attend college.