TY - JOUR

T1 - New Evidence on the Effects of the Shortened School Duration in the German States:

T2 - An Evaluation of Post-secondary Education Decisions

AU - Meyer, Tobias

AU - Thomsen, Stephan L.

AU - Schneider, Heidrun

N1 - Funding information: We thank an anonymous referee for very helpful comments. The paper has benefited from discussions at the Lower Saxony Workshop in Applied Economics 2014, the RWI Research Network Conference 2014, the COMPIE Conference 2014, the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association 2015, the Annual Congress of the Verein für Socialpolitik 2015, the ZEW Summer School 2015, the Annual Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance 2016, the Research Seminar at FAU Nürnberg 2016, the Annual Congress of the Royal Economic Society 2017, and the Annual Meeting of the Society of Labor Economists 2017. We would like to thank all participants and discussants for their helpful comments. We thank the American Journal Experts for providing linguistic proof-reading. We also thank the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) for providing the data. Financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG), projects TH 1499/2-1 to TH 1499/2-3, is gratefully acknowledged.

PY - 2019/11

Y1 - 2019/11

N2 - Most German states have recently reduced the duration of university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years without changing the graduation requirements. We use nationwide data on high school graduates and the different timing of reform introduction in the federal states to identify the effects on post-secondary education decisions and to evaluate potential effect mechanisms. The results show that university enrolment of female students decreased in the first year after graduation in all analyzed states, whereas participation in voluntary service or staying abroad increased. Furthermore, students from non-academic families are more affected than students from an academic family background.

AB - Most German states have recently reduced the duration of university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years without changing the graduation requirements. We use nationwide data on high school graduates and the different timing of reform introduction in the federal states to identify the effects on post-secondary education decisions and to evaluate potential effect mechanisms. The results show that university enrolment of female students decreased in the first year after graduation in all analyzed states, whereas participation in voluntary service or staying abroad increased. Furthermore, students from non-academic families are more affected than students from an academic family background.

KW - Germany

KW - learning intensity

KW - post-secondary education decisions

KW - School duration

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85043697867&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.15488/2227

DO - 10.15488/2227

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85043697867

VL - 20

SP - 201

EP - 253

JO - German Economic Review

JF - German Economic Review

SN - 1465-6485

IS - 4

ER -