Returns to vocational education in Portugal

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Estimates revealed a wage advantage for workers with vocational education vis-à-vis workers with general education, in the beginning of the career. Particularly, accounting for both workers’ and firms’ characteristics, the former group earns on average around 2% more than the latter. However, the earnings of vocationally educated workers grow at a slower rate and are surpassed by the earnings of generally educated workers at around eight years of experience. Such wage-experience profile is more pronounced in the case of vocational courses of level III when compared to other job-oriented tracks.