Interactions between vocational and attitudinal skills in labour market outcomes: findings from the skills’ assessment of garment factory workers in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyse the effects of workers’ self-rated attitudinal skills and their performance on vocational skills tests on their wage. The survey was conducted with garment workers who had experience of less than three years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The constituting elements of attitudinal skills were examined using the questionnaire for the workers. Meanwhile, a vocational skills test was conducted with the same population and graded by the employers and the vocational schools’ teachers. We found that the attitudinal skills, i.e. the desire to maintain a clean and tidy workplace and to follow the rules, are associated with higher earnings. Vocational skills, which are more likely to be rewarded by higher salaries, include sewing and patternmaking. We also found that the interaction between patternmaking, sewing, and attitudinal skills yielded higher returns. Interestingly, our results show that at higher levels of attitudinal skills, workers with high sewing skills, and high patternmaking skills earned a higher wage. Our results are robust to alternative measures of attitudinal skills that correct for reference bias and different specifications.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational skill
• attitude
• earnings
• Technical and Vocational Education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Kautz et al. (2014); Humphries and Kosse (2017).

2. This approach serves two purposes: it evaluates the reliability of the test module, and it compares the perceived level of importance about specific aspects of skills between the supply side and the demand side of labour.

3. Seventy economies, including countries and various regions within countries, took part in PISA 2015 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2016, 10).

4. Rao et al. (2014) developed a culture-sensitive competency assessment test for children ages 3–5 in the East Asia and Pacific region. Although it is specifically designed for early childhood, our approach to constructing the assessment module has general implications for the measurement of noncognitive skills in developing countries.

5. We also tested a four-way interaction between patternmaking skills, sewing skills, finishing skills, and attitudinal skills, and our results are consistent with the three-way interaction. We present the three-way interaction because it is easy to interpret. Results of the four-way interaction can be provided upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science through the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 15H05142.