
Subjective expectations and occupational choices among university students in Mozambique
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Mendola-et-al-2018-policy-brief-36401-ENGLISH.pdf
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- The transition from school to the labour market is receiving growing attention among economists and policymakers, especially in developing countries.
- This study examines the role of subjective expectations about employment and earnings in influencing occupational choices in three different sectors (public, private, and self- employment) among university students in Mozambique.
- We use a combination of tailored survey data collected under different scenarios and a randomised information treatment administrated to over 800 students from different college majors in two leading universities in Maputo.
- Results suggest that students update beliefs after the information treatment in the way we expect and sort into occupation according to average expected earnings. Expected riskiness of occupations also plays a role: students tend to avoid occupations with disparities in high earnings and low probability of finding a job. Furthermore, disregarding uncertainty might lead to an overestimation of the importance of expected average earnings.
- The findings of the study suggest that students tend to under-estimate returns to higher education in the self-employment sector, while over-estimating them in the public sector, highlighting one potential and fundamental cause of the skills mismatch in the Mozambican labour market.