Business cycles and school‐to‐work transitions for vocational students: the role of general skills and educational opportunities

Abstract This paper examines whether general skills and universal access to higher education shape vocational students' school‐to‐work transitions during recessions. We study how increased unemployment affects post‐completion outcomes across institutional regimes that differ in curricular emphasis on general skills and access to higher education – allowing us to identify effects of general skills alone and combined with access to higher education. Relative to a setting with limited general skills and no universal access to higher education, combining general skills with universal access to higher education more than halves labour‐market scarring on earnings over the first six years after completion. General skills alone do not meaningfully affect labour‐market scarring.