Zorunlu olmayan eğitimde süre uzatımı reformunun gençlerin eğitim ve istihdamı üzerine etkileri

This study examines the impact of an increase in the duration of non-compulsory upper secondary education from three to four years on the schooling and employment outcomes of youth. We use micro-data from various rounds of Household Labor Force Surveys of Turkey and a Difference-in-Difference design where we exploit the variation across birth cohorts in policy exposure for identification. Our first analysis involves looking at how school enrollment of 15-18-year-olds changes as a result of the policy. Furthermore, we investigate whether the birth cohorts affected by the policy have higher school attainment as measured by attainment of at least a high school degree. Our analysis on education is followed by the policy effect on employment and time-use, where we divide youth into four mutually exclusive groups according to their enrollment and employment status. The results show that the policy increases enrollment in any education level and upper secondary education by 4.7 to 6.7 and 6.2 to 7.9 percentage points (pp), respectively. The effect is significantly different across genders and settlement types. Furthermore, the policy decreases the probability of attaining upper secondary education or more schooling by 4.5 to 4.7 pp. The policy reduces the employment of 15-18-year-olds by 0.8 pp. The policy also changes the time-use patterns of the youth: the probability of being enrolled only increases by 4.8 to 6.0 pp, the probability of being employed only and being engaged in neither of the two activities decreases by 0.7_to_1.3 pp and 4.0_to_5.4 pp, as a result of the policy.