About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

125 Int'l Lab. Rev. 561 (1986)
The Educational Composition of the Labour Force: An International Comparison

handle is hein.journals/intlr125 and id is 575 raw text is: International Labour Review, Vol. 125, No. 5, September-October 1986 The educational composition of the labour force: An international comparison George PSACHAROPOULOS and Ana Maria ARRIAGADA * Policy-makers and analysts typically use differences between the school enrolment ratios of different countries or regions to justify educational investment. (For the example par excellence in this respect see Harbison and Myers, 1964.) In this article we argue that although the enrolment ratio is a readily available statistic, it may not be the most appropriate indicator for setting investment priorities in education. Instead we have compiled and present here statistics on the educational composition of the labour force, which we believe constitutes a more sensitive human capital index. Flows versus stocks At any given point in time, a country's productive capacity is largely determined by its factor endowments, such as the area of land under cultivation, the amount of installed physical capital, the size of the labour force and the amount of human capital embodied in the labour force. Such stocks of productive resources change over time as a result of investment flows, e.g. the stock of physical capital is augmented each year by the flow of net investment in new machines. In a similar fashion, the human capital stock is changed by the net additions to the labour force of the flow of graduates from the educational system. The difference between educational stocks and flows is perhaps more important than in the case of other factors of production for the following reasons: (a) the time-lag between investment in education (say, as measured by enrolments) and additions to the human capital stock is longer than in any other sector; (b) some investment in education may never translate into additions to the human capital stock because of losses in the process (e.g. graduates not * The World Bank. This paper would not have been possible without the data collection work of Motohisa Kaneko and subsequent work by Robin Horn. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not necessarily be attributed to the World Bank. Copyright © International Labour Organisation 1986

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most