Do social connections formed among university peers shape future labour market outcomes?
In this seminar, Andrei Gorshkov will tackle the question of whether social connections formed at university shape future labour market outcomes.
Do social connections formed among university peers shape future labour market outcomes?
06 Feb 2020, 13:00 – 14:00
To answer this question, Andrei Gorskhov's research has combined unique records on the random assignment of Business Economics students to tutorial groups at Copenhagen Business School from 1984 to 2006 with detailed labour market information from Danish registers.
As it turns out, students that were randomly assigned to the same tutorial group tended to have more similar careers than students from the same cohort but different tutorial groups. In particular, students from the same tutorial group tended to work in the same occupations and industries and are more likely to be hired by the same employers. The strongest "excess" similarities are found at the most disaggregated workplace level.
These peer effects appear strong and persistent (although decreasing over time) and are characterised by gender and country-of-origin homophily. Also, a comparison of the transitions of students to workplaces with incumbent tutorial group peers in relation to workplaces with incumbent cohort peers demonstrates that students benefit from alumni networks by gaining access to more stable and higher-paying jobs.