Capital humano y ciclo económico: la inscripción en educación superior en la Unión Europea en el período 2000-2018

Abstract

The current study aims to analyze the cyclical behavior of enrollment in higher education of young adults. For this, a panel data is constructed for the countries of the European Union between 2000 and 2018. First, I find statistically significant effects of the business cycle on enrollment, which differ according to sociodemographic characteristics such as age and sex. In particular, for the enrollment of young people between the ages of 20 and 30, the results show both pro-cyclical effects of GDP per capita and counter-cyclical effects of the unemployment rate, although not for other age ranges. When separately analyzing enrollment in different types of programs, it is found that in short-cycle, bachelor's and master's degree programs, female enrollment is more affected than male enrollment by variations in GDP per capita. There are also differences in the behavior of enrollment according to the level of GDP per capita and financial depth of the country.