Follow the Yellow Brick Road: The Effects of Job Retraining on Workforce Outcomes in Minnesota (Poster 2)

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

How do today’s laid-off workers retrain for the “jobs of tomorrow?” Research evidence is limited on the extent to which displaced workers return to school and enroll in post-secondary educational institutions to reskill for new jobs. The trope of the downwardly mobile manufacturing worker is familiar, but that of the displaced administrative assistant is less recognizable. Yet both contribute to a shifting map of economic hope and despair. Using linked education-workforce administrative data from Minnesota, this project examines how job retraining shapes the relationship between job loss, workforce transitions, and economic mobility amongst displaced workers without a bachelor’s degree. I ask: (1) Does retraining ameliorate the negative effects of job loss? (2) Do the effects of retraining vary by the
type of courses, programs (particularly STEM-related), and institutions? (3) How do demographic characteristics intersect to condition retraining outcomes? To estimate a causal effect, I construct and compare two groups—a group of displaced workers and a group of nondisplaced workers—to study how occupational retraining shapes workers’ future economic well-being. My project will assess the role of educational institutions in shifting the economic map toward more hope and less despair.

Author

• Anna M. Bokun, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author