Does Technological Development Explain Higher Education Expansion?

Abstract

Globalisation and the development of technology called forth an expansion and a fundamental transformation of systems of higher education around the world. This research proposes a theoretical model that demonstrates that the growth in higher education enrolment is in response to technological shocks in which either high-skill-biased technologies, technologies replacing middle-skill workers or technologies raising the productivity of high-skill workers, which increases the wage premium of high-skill workers. The authors illustrate the workings of the model using Russian data for 2000–2018, discuss changes in the structure of the labour force, relative wages and enrolment in higher education during the last twenty years