JESS Seminar: The Sooner the Better? Compulsory Schooling Reforms in Sweden

We evaluate the impact on earnings, pensions, and further labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. They extended the annual term length and compulsory schooling by comparable amounts. We find striking differences in the effects of the two reforms: at 9-13%, the returns to the term length extension were at least as high OLS returns to education and benefited broad ranges of the population. The compulsory schooling extension had small (1-2%) albeit significant effects, which were possibly driven by an increase in post-compulsory schooling. Both reforms led to increased sorting into occupations with heavy reliance on basic skills.