Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/102960 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
KOF Working Papers No. 350
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Zurich
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes how apprenticeship training, i.e., work-based secondary education, affects personality traits compared to full-time school-based vocational or general education. Employing an instrumental variable approach that exploits the regional differences in the relative weight of school- and work-based secondary education across Switzerland and Europe, we determine that apprenticeship training reduces neuroticism and increases agreeableness and conscientiousness, while openness and extraversion remain unaffected. These results validate the socializing function of work-based education. However, heterogeneous treatment effects are found, indicating positive effects for students with less favorable personality traits but insignificant or even reducing effects in the case of extraversion for those with already high values in personality traits.
Subjects: 
Apprenticeship
work-based education
VET
Big Five
personality traits
JEL: 
C26
D01
I20
J24
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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