Abstract
Despite widespread belief that majoring in science in high school has a greater payoff in the Indian labor market than majoring in business/humanities, there is no hard evidence to substantiate this thought. Here I provide the first evidence of the causal effect of majoring in science on individuals' labor market outcomes relative to majoring in business/humanities using nationally representative data from India. Estimating the causal effect, however, is a formidable task since selection into high school major is nonrandom and exclusion restrictions are generally unavailable. I circumvent these difficulties by employing a recently developed estimator that does not rely on valid exclusion restriction for identification. I find that majoring in science has a negative causal effect on individuals' employment probability. Conditional on being employed, however, my results indicate that majoring in science has a positive causal effect on individuals' labor earnings and probability of being engaged in a professional occupation. These findings suggest that the labor market effects of majoring in science in high school in India, contrary to conventional wisdom, is not a plain tale of 'science premium'.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
