The Role of Beyond-Secondary Levels of Education in Explaining Wage Differentials Across the Philippine Wage Distribution

Abstract The K-12 curriculum was implemented in the Philippines in 2013 and took effect in 2015. Despite the additional 2 years of secondary education, recent studies show a decline in returns to higher education in the country. This paper aims to identify the role of beyond-secondary education in explaining wage differentials before and during the implementation of the K-12 curriculum. We also analyze specific levels of beyond-secondary educational attainment and determine if their contribution to wage differentials applies to low-wage or high-wage workers. Using the Unconditional Quantile Regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique, results reveal that returns to post-secondary graduate (Certificate and Associate’s degree) and college graduate (Bachelor’s degree) educational levels contributed to the reduction of wage gains between 2015 and 2019. Specifically, this applies more to low-wage female and low-to relatively high-wage male workers. This implies that despite higher household investments in higher education, lower real wage growth reduced the expected benefits. Further findings from the selectivity-corrected conditional regression confirm a decrease in estimates for beyond-secondary educational attainments between 2015 and 2019.