Training Policies in Chile: A Decision-making Effectiveness Comparison

Abstract

The globalized world is facing different pressures on how their economies are organized by sustainability concerns, international agreements or pacts, global warming, and the fourth industrial revolution. From a labor market perspective, one of the main challenges for governments is to define the role of training activities in the labor institutions. Those definitions imply a broad range of elements as certification of skills, training subsidies, retraining programs, public-private alliances, vocational education, and training relations. Comparative literature has detected a variety of approaches by the Government by coordinating activities and funding for employers or employees. Even if Chile can be described as an employer-based training system, currently, training activities could be financed by companies, the Government, and Individuals. That situation has led to having scarce evidence about the whole functioning of the system, being the available information mainly focus on the role of training subsidies or social programs evaluation, neglecting a relevant portion of training activities financed by individuals. Using Casen survey cross-sectional versions from 1994 to 2009 and its panel versions 1996-2006 and 2006-2009, different econometrics tests were performed: Ordinary Least Squares, Quantile Regression, Propensity Score Matching, Difference in Difference Analysis, and Fixed Effect Regression. Results show that only individual decisions of training have a significant effect throughout time (18%), while social programs and company-sponsored training do not affect workers' wages in the long term.