Essays on Human Capital and Labor Market Opportunity

Abstract

This dissertation explores key issues in human capital formation and labor market outcomes through three essays. Across three chapters, it examines how the structure of educational choices, access to labor market opportunities, and the interaction between skills and mobility affect economic outcomes in distinct settings. The first chapter studies how curriculum structure shapes gender segregation in STEM in France. We exploit a major reform of the French high school system that replaced predefined high school tracks with a more flexible system. We show that expanding subject-level choice increased gender segregation across fields: female students disproportionately moved away from Mathematics, while male students moved away from Biology. These shifts reflect the removal of bundling constraints embedded in the pre-reform track system. Despite large changes in high school specialization, broad postsecondary field choices remain largely stable, with the notable exception of Economics, where female enrollment declines. The reform also led students to enter higher education more specialized but less broadly prepared in complementary subjects. The second chapter investigates the potential of remote work to provide economic opportunities for refugees, through a randomized evaluation of an online freelancing training program for refugees and host community members in East Africa. We find that refugees, especially camp-based refugees, are substantially more likely to take up the program, indicating strong demand for remote work opportunities among populations facing severe barriers in local labor markets. The intervention increased knowledge of online labor platforms and profile creation, but did not increase online employment or earnings. Instead, treated participants revised downward their expectations about online work, and in-person earnings increased, consistent with a more efficient allocation of labor market effort across available opportunities. The third chapter examines the returns to human capital in Pakistan by studying the relationship between schooling, cognitive and socioemotional skills, migration, and earnings. Using longitudinal data that follow individuals from rural childhood into adulthood, we show that additional schooling is associated with higher cognitive and socioemotional skills, and that labor earnings are positively associated with these skills conditional on schooling. However, these relationships vary by migration status, indicating that the returns to skills depend not only on their acquisition but also on the environments in which they are deployed.