Student Employment and Education: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Educational outcomes have many determinants, but one that most young people can readily control is choosing whether to work while in school. Sixty-nine studies have estimated the effect, but results vary from large negative to positive estimates. We show that the results are systematically driven by context, publication bias, and treatment of endogeneity. Studies ignoring endogeneity suffer from an upward bias, which is almost fully compensated by publication selection in favor of negative estimates. Net of the biases, the literature suggests a negative but economically inconsequential mean effect. The effect is more negative for high-intensity employment and educational outcomes measured as decisions to dropout, but it is positive in Germany. To derive these results we collect 861 previously reported estimates together with 32 variables reflecting estimation context, use recently developed nonlinear techniques to correct for publication bias, and employ Bayesian and frequentist model averaging to assign a pattern to the heterogeneity in the literature.

Examining the Relationships between Academic Adaptation and Life-Domain Issues among Working University Students in Estonia

“…Study work integration, also known as juggling study and work, is the combination of work and education for university students; this might include working either part-time or full-time, while attending university (Kroupova et al, 2021;Mitola et al, 2018). As the definition of working students can vary from country to country and from law to law, and as it would be impossible to include all aspects in the context of this study, working students are defined for the purposes of this study as university students who work, while pursuing their higher education.…”

“…There are several factors to consider while analysing the relationship between employment and academic success, including working hours and difficulties in the workplace (Kroupova et al, 2021). It has been argued that students who work more hours per week have lower grades, are less likely to persist in college, and are more likely to drop out than students who work less hours per week (Pusztai et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2019).…”

“…Academic performance and the likelihood of encountering academic problems were shown to be lower among students who worked more than 20 hours per week, when compared with those who worked less than 20 hours per week (Applegate & Daly, 2016;Zhang & Yang, 2020). In addition, students who work more hours per week are more likely to have difficulty balancing their work and academic responsibilities, which can have negative effects on students' academic performance (Kroupova et al, 2021;Tyler, 2003;Zhang & Yang, 2020).…”

“…The issue of working students struggling to balance employment, personal responsibilities, and academic obligations has become increasingly prevalent due to the rise in the cost of living and the introduction of fee-based education (Kroupova et al, 2021). As a result, investigating the relationships between lifedomain difficulties and academic adaptation among working, students have become an important topic of research (Applegate & Daly, 2016).…”

“Wild” tariff schemes: Evidence from the Republic of Georgia

“…In 2016-19, the effect is 8.75% (s.e. 11.49%), and is statistically insignificant at the conventional levels 28. In this paper we use the dataset from the Tbilisi city limits solely for comparison purposes with our main dataset, the HBS.…”