Inequality of income dominates the American political discourse, and it should. Creating good jobs should be the highest domestic priority of a new administration. The nation’s attention, we hope, will be absorbed by job creation in the first few months of the new year.
We at Challenge believe there is no more important subject. But this discourse has been dominated by a narrow technological explanation of inequality, proposed by many influential economists. That is to say, more college is the most important path to gaining the set of skills needed to hold good jobs.
Thus, America has focused on providing opportunity for youngsters to go to college—including community colleges—and indeed college attendance has risen. All this is to the good, but is it good enough? America has done relatively little job training for the young. While earnings for young college graduates have not risen for years on average, America has almost the least effective and comprehensive apprenticeship program among rich nations.
We are therefore devoting this issue of Challenge to the pros and cons of apprenticeship programs, including three articles on the success and failures of apprenticeships abroad as examples for the U.S.
Robert Lerman is among the nation’s leading experts in apprenticeships. Lerman argues the “academics-only” approach in America puts all our eggs in one basket, and is too often ineffective, leaving out too many young people and minorities. In his lead article for this issue, Lerman argues that the approach is not as successful as advocates thought it would be. He concludes that a much more aggressive system of apprenticeships is the answer to better jobs and reduced inequality in America.
As he puts it, a work-based apprenticeship program focused on the work skills the nation needs can help all workers and especially the young. He also argues that apprenticeship programs are better at reaching many who are unable to complete their studies at college and who might otherwise end up in low-wage jobs. Only 10 percent of African-American students entering community colleges in 2010 graduated within 150 percent of the time expected for completing their programs. In addition, apprenticeships are cheaper and more cost-effective to implement than the full-scale academic incentives the federal government now supplies.
Lerman is world-renowned in his field and he has helped Challenge acquire three important articles on how apprenticeships work in other nations where programs are much more common. The good and the bad of these programs can serve as models for future apprenticeship programs in the U.S.
Among the most fascinating and successful programs is Switzerland’s. As Samuel Muehlemann of Germany points out, the dual Swiss system of education and on-the-work-site training is unusually cost effective. In fact, the government does not provide a subsidy though it does finance vocational schools. Meantime, businesses who give apprenticeships find it a worthwhile investment and young apprentices, who are at first paid low wages, are also nevertheless attracted to the future benefits of developing skills. Muehlemann discusses under what circumstances adopting such a plan can work in other countries.
On the other hand, Canada’s apprenticeship program is more of a mixed success. As Morley Gunderson and Harry Krashinsky note, apprentices make up a high proportion of post-high school study in Canada. In 2013, apprentices came to 18.6 percent of post-secondary enrollment compared to 29.7 percent for community colleges and 51.7 percent for universities.
This suggests considerable success. Apprentices must find an employer and work for a low wage until they complete their training. As we have seen, this is not unusual for other nations’ programs, including Switzerland’s, but in Canada apprentices are older than they typically are in Europe, where students enter the apprenticeship program in their teens. This is a more difficult burden for older workers. Apprentices go to classes for four to eight weeks a year, working on the job the remainder of the time. The apprenticeship program technically should take three to four years.
But there are other problems with the program. Although future benefits are substantial, apprenticeships are considered second-tier compared to classic education, as in the U.S. The programs can be too long and pay too little for older workers. Many indeed do drop out or take longer to complete the program, thus cutting into future wages.
The authors note apprenticeships, for all their faults, are nevertheless gaining more attention as a way to create opportunities for Canadians. Gunderson and Krashinsky propose a list of potential reforms they say are needed to make an expanded apprenticeships program both viable and valuable.
In recent years, England has invested aggressively in expanding its apprenticeships program. Its goal is to raise the skills of workers specifically to improve the nation’s disappointing productivity. As Alison Fuller, the author of our article, notes, in many respects the system can boast world class apprenticeships in England, particularly, as she says, “in sectors such as engineering, which are more likely to recruit young people, using apprenticeship to develop them from novices to becoming competent engineers. This is a lengthy and comprehensive process, that costs employers much more than they receive in public subsidy.”
But she believes the system overall is far from perfect, partly because some programs stress the credential rather than the learning process. England has recently adopted a levy on business to pay for an expanded apprenticeship program. But the author is concerned the investment will not be used well.
This issue of Challenge also features an article on human trafficking, one of the great tragedies of our age and a major consequence of global poverty. Our author, Siddhartha Sarkar, argues we must take a rights-based approach to trafficking in order to keep human beings at the center of concern, specifically making the issue one of addressing the human rights of the general public. Sarkar undertook a study of trafficking in Nepal, which has among the highest levels of trafficking. The study was designed to investigate demographic and social characteristics of the victims; causes of trafficking; process, routes and transport; mode of operation of the traffickers; and types of sexual exploitation and experiences of violence from employers and clients towards the trafficked women. The study used both qualitative interviews and developed quantitative data analysis. The target population for this study were 158 Nepalese women and girls who had been trafficked for sexual exploitation from Nepal to India. The women were either sent from rural areas to cities to work under the arrangements of a recruiter, or they individually migrated in search of better employment. Either way, the women typically found themselves without a support network of family, relatives or friends, making them more vulnerable to being pulled from their new and uncertain circumstances to the sphere of trafficking and consequently sexual exploitation. Indeed, they were typically forced into sexual exploitation the very first day they arrived. Sarkar argues that Nepal has an imperative duty to adopt wide-ranging reforms suggested by his comprehensive study.
Interest rates are low, investment needs are high. The Next President, as opposed to The Nasty Candidate, as our essayist Mike Sharpe puts it, has an extensive set of proposals to get the nation back on track, not least a bold plan to invest in infrastructure. Of course, he is arguing for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Writes Sharpe: “Now is the most auspicious time for a New Transformation since the New Deal.” He believes Hillary is prepared.
— Jeff Madrick