Sofie J. Cabus

• PhD in Economics of Education
• Research Manager at KU Leuven

This paper discusses the returns to non-cognitive skills based on results of a meta-analysis. The systematic literature review of articles published in the last decade and analysing labour market outcomes and non-cognitive skills allowed us to extract more than 300 estimates linking earnings and non-cognitive skills, most often measured by the Big...

This paper analyses the marginal impact of a compulsory secondary education reform in Senegal. The policy increased compulsory education from 6 to 10 years, incorporating lower secondary school to compulsory education. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey 2017, we investigate the effect of the policy in increasing compulsory education...

University-industry collaboration (UIC) is increasingly seen as an important driver of economic growth, but knowledge on its implementation mechanisms is still limited especially in developing countries. This constrains the capacity of those countries to design adequate policies and strategies to foster such interactions. This paper provides inform...

We investigate the relationship between parent's education and children's education in the presence of deprivation in developing countries. The aim is to contribute to the evidence on the important factors in the intergenerational transmission of education. The deprivation index constructed comprises of child mortality, school attendance, cooking f...

Although widely used in policy debates, the literature on children’s outcomes when raised by same-sex parents mostly relies on small selective samples or samples based on cross-sectional survey data. This has led to a lack of statistical power and the inability to distinguish children born to same-sex parents from children of separated parents. We...

This paper presents evidence from an innovative teacher professional development (TPD) project tackling school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in primary and lower-secondary schools in Cambodia. The core activities of the TPD project are discussed, focusing on teachers’ changes in attitudes and beliefs toward emotional abuse and physical viol...

Purpose This study aims at advancing the understanding of University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) by proposing an adapted conceptual model for comprehensive contextual analysis taking industry perspective and identifying effective mechanisms for stimulating UIC in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Design/methodology/approach This study was designed as a m...

Research on participation and inequality in adult education and training shows ‘system characteristics’ play a key role in restricting access to young adults with low levels of education. This chapter focuses on what advantages an inclusive policy on lifelong learning has for society as a whole. Structural barriers mean that an opportunity (or desi...

To reach the desired level of university–industry collaboration (UIC) in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, specific strategies and operational mechanisms are needed. For this, an in-depth understanding of the specificities of the context concerning the UIC influencing factors is necessary. Such an understanding is still limited in SSA. This stud...

This paper studies the effectiveness of two different conditions of offering an e-learning leadership training for school leaders in Rwanda in a randomised controlled trial. We distinguish a trainer-led condition in which a trainer guides the school leader, and a peer-led condition that includes peer discussions among school leaders to facilitate t...

APPENDIX 1: Keywords used in Computerized Databases Search and APPENDIX 2: Main Reports assessed for elegibility

List of main Reports assessed for elegibility - Article: Policies to tackle Skills Mismatch: a Systematic Literature Review

This stata code is underlying the paper entitled "All it Takes for a Teacher is to Know the Children? – An empirical study on increasing child development in Vietnamese preschools". It is offered for replication purposes only.

This dataset is underlying the paper entitled "All it Takes for a Teacher is to Know the Children? – An empirical study on increasing child development in Vietnamese preschools". It is offered for replication purposes only.

Samenvatting Volwasseneneducatie (een Leven Lang Ontwikkelen, LLO) wint aandacht in het politieke debat. Het maakt mensen onder andere weerbaarder voor schokken op de arbeidsmarkt. In rurale regio’s is er doorgaans minder deelname aan LLO. In de streek de Westhoek, en bij uitbreiding de Vlaamse provincie West-Vlaanderen, is er echter een relatief g...

The data correspond to the working paper "Tackling School-Related Gender-Based Violence through Teacher Professional Development in Cambodia".

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention of formative assessments with a clicker-based technology on anxiety and academic performance. We use a randomized experiment in physics education in one school in Dutch secondary education. For treated students, the formative assessments are operationalized through quizzing at the end of eac...

In this paper we study if feedback strategies during formative assessment with polling technology have an impact on learning gains. We conduct a randomized experiment in physics class in upper secondary education with the web-based polling system Socrative comparing three conditions. In the cooperative condition students receive a combination of pe...

To tackle school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), an innovative project, Teaching for Improved Gender Equality and Responsiveness (TIGER), was implemented in Cambodia, Battambang province. TIGER took place in grades 4 to 6 of primary education and grades 7 to 9 of lower secondary education in Battambang province. We have set-up a pre-interven...

De vraag naar vaardigheden verandert ten gevolge van technologische ontwikkelingen. Routinematige taken kunnen grotendeels geautomatiseerd worden, terwijl bij niet-routinematige taken machines vooral een ondersteuning van menselijke arbeid zijn. Hoe ontwikkelt de beloning voor niet-routinematige vaardigheden zich op de Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt?

This paper investigates the effects of training apprentices on the productivity of Hungarian firms. In order to retrieve a causal estimate of the effects of apprenticeship training on firm performance, we apply a set of dynamic panel data estimation techniques. We create a unique administrative matched employer–employee panel dataset containing ove...

Deze studie vergelijkt de schooluitkomsten in het basis-en secundair onderwijs van kinderen met homoseksuele ouders met de schooluitkomsten van kinderen met heteroseksuele ouders. Eerder onderzoek naar schoolresultaten van kinderen met homoseksuele ouders is gebaseerd op kleine steekproeven. Het kon niet bepalen of kinderen zijn opgegroeid met homo...

We propose a multi-level explanatory model aimed at explaining the variability behind participation in adult learning. Our model focuses on the employed adults, narrowing down to vulnerable sub-groups of employed: low-skilled; young and low-skilled, and immigrants. Adult learning participation is explained identifying determinants at the level of t...

De Europese Commissie streefde - tegen 2020 - naar een participatie van 15% van alle 25 tot 64-jarigen aan levenslang leren (zowel via formele als niet-formele educatie). Dit streefcijfer werd in 2018 slechts in een beperkt aantal EU-landen gehaald en lag over de volledige EU op 11,2% en in België op 8,5%. In de Westhoek is de participatiegraad aan...

This study explores the effects of formative feedback on students’ metacognitive skills when using feedback strategies with polling technology. Using a randomized field experiment among 633 physics students in six schools in Dutch secondary education, we study assessments with the polling technology Socrative, by dividing students into three groups...

België kent een lange traditie van loonkostensubsidies voor het tewerkstellen van doelgroepen. De Zesde Staatshervorming regionaliseerde het doelgroepenbeleid, waarna het grondig werd hervormd. Het Vlaamse doelgroepenbeleid focust op drie doelgroepen: jongeren, 55-plussers en personen met een arbeidsbeperking. Doelgroepverminderingen voor andere gr...

In deze VIONA-studie wordt de effectiviteit van het Vlaamse doelgroepenbeleid tussen half 2016 en eind 2018 onderzocht. Het betreft met name de periode na de overdracht van de bevoegdheden met de zesde staatshervorming en vóór de wijzigingen die in 2019 en 2020 van kracht werden. Het geëvalueerde doelgroepenbeleid koos voor vereenvoudiging en focus...

We investigate the importance of contextual variables in explaining the differences in the correlation of education from parents to children in 48 developing countries. The contextual characteristics are internationally comparable macro-economic and institutional indicators. We use measures on GDP and industrial development, public spending, the ed...

This guide accompanies the following article: Momo, M. S. M., Cabus, S. J., De Witte, K. & Groot, W. (2018) A systematic review of the literature on the causes of early school leaving in Africa and Asia. Review of Education, https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3134

This paper systematically reviews the literature on the causes of leaving school early in Africa and Asia. Despite the improvement in primary school enrolment in the developing countries by 2015, the persistence of school dropout, however, renders this improvement almost insignificant. This leads to the necessity of observing the prolonged determin...

This paper provides a systematic review of the growing literature on the poor match between employees’ field degree and the job requirements, also referred to as horizontal mismatch. We identify the different definitions used in the literature and find that each measure of horizontal mismatch yields substantially different incidence rates. We discu...

STEM-fields of study offered in vocational education and training suffer from low student enrolment, while, at the same time, many job opportunities are available for STEM graduates on the labour market. This study examines the effectiveness of a five-day study choice programme conducted in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in the schoolyear 2014-15....

Mismatch tussen onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt betekent meestal een slechte aansluiting tussen het gevolgde onderwijs door de werknemer en het gevraagde onderwijs door de werkgever. Landelijke cijfers hierover ontbreken echter. Is mismatch in Nederland feit of fictie?

Dit artikel is een korte weergave van een meer uitgebreide literatuurstudie die recentelijk is verschenen in Review of Education (Ariës & Cabus, 2015). Het richt zich specifiek op de correlaties tussen verschillende vormen van ouderbetrokkenheid bij het huiswerk en de toetsprestaties in het lager en secundair onderwijs. Het theoretisch kader dat we...

This article empirically examines the implications of competition among Dutch secondary schools: (1) regarding the sorting of students by performance levels in schools at the begiining of secondary education; and (2) regarding performance gains in the secondary school career, controlling for the aforementioned sorting patterns. We used data from ab...

Terwijl in 1991 ongeveer 1 op 2 werkgevers in Nederland zich zorgen maakten over het gebrek aan vaardigheden bij hun personeel, is dit nog 1 op 4 in 2011. We stellen vast dat mismatch tussen onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt een hardnekkiger probleem is in de publieke sectoren (zorg en welzijn, onderwijs en overheid) dan in de private sectoren. Onderzoek t...

Een hogeschool die de doorstroom vanuit het middelbaar beroepsonderwijs wil verbeteren zal zelf aan de slag moeten. Want ligt het per se aan de studenten dat ze niet blijven? ‘Studenten die uitvallen of switchen zeggen veel vaker dat ze zich niet thuis voelen op de opleiding, dat ze zich niet thuis voelen bij medestudenten en docenten, dat ze de we...

In 1991 gaf bijna de helft van de Nederlandse werkgevers aan dat het werknemersbestand onvoldoende toegerust is voor de eisen die het werk stelt. In 2011 ging nog slechts een kwart van de werkgevers akkoord met deze stelling. Dit kan worden verklaard door het gestegen opleidingsniveau van de Nederlandse beroepsbevolking.

This study examines whether the expansion in higher education over the past 20 years has contributed to better education–job matches on the labour market. In particular, we relate changes in the average formal schooling level of workers on the regional labour market to the educational attainment of the recruited staff within companies operating on...

Job turnover can mitigate some of the consequences of a recession under the condition that the labor market is able to allocate workers to jobs efficiently; the allocation of workers to jobs yields better fits in terms of education; and the speed of job turnover should exhibit a countercyclical pattern. This hypothesis is tested for one European Un...

Theory and evidence indicate that, if family size grows, the younger children will get less parental involvement than the older children. These differences in parental involvement through birth order may impact academic achievement if, and only if, parental involvement is an important determinant of children’s educational attainment. The oldest chi...

This paper provides a systematic review of the growing literature on the poor match between employees’ field degree and the job requirements, also referred to as horizontal mismatch. We identify the different definitions used in the literature and find that each measure of horizontal mismatch yields substantially different incidence rates. We discu...

This paper contributes to the growing literature on school dropout by proposing and empirically testing a theoretical framework on the enrollment decision of youngsters in secondary education. The model relates school dropout to time preferences, motivation, opportunity costs and policy measures. It is empirically tested on longitudinal data of abo...

This guide accompanies the following article: Roel J. F. J. Ariës and Sofie J. Cabus, Parental homework involvement improves test scores? A review of the literature, Review of Education, DOI:10.1002/rev3.3055

Wages are a composite measure of the return to education and the return to work experiences. Work experiences are often defined as workers who gain experiences on-the-job. However, work experiences can also be part of a study curriculum in vocational secondary education. We estimate the return to in-school work experiences by comparing the Heckman...

This review specifically focusses on the correlations between various parent strategies and student achievements in compulsory education. Therefore, the state-of-the-art framework created by Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2001) will be updated with recent findings from the international scientific literature. When parents facilitate, structure or emotional...

This paper explores the effects of in-class level differentiation by making innovative use of an interactive whiteboard (SMARTboard) on math proficiency. Therefore, we evaluate the use of SMARTboard in class, in combination with teacher training, using a randomized field experiment among 199 pre-vocational students in 7th-grade in the Netherlands....

Almost 50 percent of Dutch employers reported mismatch between skill demand and skill supply in 1991. In 2011, this rate was only 25 percent. One potential explanation for this decline is that employers benefitted from formal schooling trends that developed in response to the increasing demand for higher-educated graduates. This hypothesis is teste...

Almost 50 percent of Dutch employers reported mismatch between skill demand and skill supply in 1991. In 2011, this rate was only 25 percent. One potential explanation for this decline is that employers benefitted from formal schooling trends that developed in response to the increasing demand for higher-educated graduates. This hypothesis is teste...

De betrokkenheid van ouders bij het onderwijs van hun kind is van invloed op hun leerprestaties. Vooral moeders eigenen zich deze betrokken rol toe, maar gezamenlijke ouderbegeleiding zou voor de leerprestaties beter zijn. See more at: http://www.economie.nl/artikel/ouderbetrokkenheid-bei%CC%88nvloedt-leerprestaties

This paper estimates the short-run causal effect of tumor detection and treatment on psychosocial well-being, work and income. Tumor detection can be considered as a random event, so that we can compare individuals’ average outcomes in the year of diagnosis with the year before. We argue for using panel data estimation techniques that enable us to...

This paper estimates the short-run causal effect of tumor detection and treatment on psychosocial well-being, work and income. Tumor detection can be considered as a random event, so that we can compare individuals’ average outcomes in the year of diagnosis with the year before. We argue for using panel data estimation techniques that enable us to...

Theory and evidence indicate that, if family size grows, the younger children will get less parental involvement than the older children. These differences in parental involvement through birth order may impact academic achievement if, and only if, parental involvement is an important determinant of children's educational attainment. The oldest chi...

Economists are well placed to study education. They are intrinsically interested in (public) spending. They want to examine whether resources are spent in an effective (i.e., doing the right things) and efficient (i.e., doing things right) way. By focusing on educational efficiency, economists can provide intuitive insights that engender more value...

This paper explores the effects of in-class level differentiation by making innovative use of an interactive whiteboard (SMARTboard) on math proficiency. Therefore, we evaluate the use of SMARTboard in class, in combination with teacher training, using a randomized field experiment among 199 pre-vocational students in 7th-grade in the Netherlands....

School absenteeism (or truancy) may be a signal of an ongoing process of student attrition that eventually leads to early school leaving. This article estimates how unauthorized school absenteeism accelerates the dropout decision. In particular, the timing of the dropout decision of truants is compared with the timing of regular school attendees us...

Unauthorized truancy is considered as one of the earliest signals of a prospective school dropout decision. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an active school attendance intervention tackling school dropout in Dutch secondary education. The intervention consists of increased care for, and interaction with, at-risk students by, for example,...

The origin of the obesity epidemic in developing countries is still poorly understood. It has been prominently argued that economic development provides a natural interpretation of the growth in obesity. This paper tests the main aggregated predictions of the theoretical framework to analyze obesity. Average body weight and health inequality should...

Concurrentie tussen middelbare scholen verbetert de prestaties van leerlingen in het algemeen licht, maar niet van leerlingen die toch al goed zijn. Concurrentie tussen scholen dient meer gericht te zijn op de kwaliteit van het onderwijs dan op het aantrekken van goede leerlingen. - See more at: http://www.economie.nl/artikel/het-rendement-van-conc...

(Published as: Do Nurses React to Inter-Industry Wage Differentials? - Evidence from the Netherlands, Contemporary Economic Perspectives, Leuven University Press) This paper explores skill shortages in the Dutch life sciences and health industry (LSH), referred to as recruitment bottlenecks. We particularly focus on the extent to which inter-indust...

Dit artikel voorspelt het overheidsbudget dat vereist is om de doelstellingen rond vroegtijdig schoolverlaten (vsv) te behalen. Hiervoor ontwikkelen we een theoretisch model dat empirisch getoetst wordt. Het model stelt ons in staat om de daling van vsv in het verleden te verklaren, en voorspellingen te maken voor de toekomst. Het model geeft aan d...

This paper reviews the growing literature on early school leaving. We clarify what is at stake with early school leaving, and touch upon underlying problems and methodological issues raised in the literature. The paper investigates the levels, the methods and models with which the topic has been studied, and discusses potential (dis)advantages of e...

Cabus S. J. Does enhanced student commitment reduce school dropout? Evidence from two major dropout regions in the Netherlands, Regional Studies. Enhanced student commitment to the school, peers and teachers may improve student motivation and reduce school dropout. A Dutch dropout prevention measure in this respect deals with smoothing the transiti...

In line with the Lisbon Agenda, set by the European Council in the year 2000, European governments formulated ambitious plans to half the level of early school leavers by 2012. This paper outlines the dropout prevention measures in the Netherlands and analyzes their effect at both the individual level and school level. Using a panel probit model, w...

Naming and shaming is a frequently applied incentive by supra-national organizations. Although common practice, a mere comparison between the outcome variable is meaningless. The observed outcome variable consists of two parts: (1) a part which is due to the general economic climate and where the policy maker does not have an influence on; (2) a ‘n...

In line with the Lisbon Agenda, set by the European Council in the year 2000, European governments formulated ambitious plans to halve the level of early school-leavers by 2012. This paper outlines the dropout prevention measures in the Netherlands and analyzes their influence at both the individual and school level. While most policy measures corr...

Sinds de Lissabon-doelstellingen staat de preventie van voortijdig schoolverlaten hoog op de Europese agenda. In Nederland heeft het ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschappen (OCW) in samenwerking met steden en regio’s diverse maatregelen getroffen om het aantal leerlingen dat de middelbare school zonder diploma verlaat, terug te dringen....

A straightforward way to prevent students from leaving education without a higher secondary diploma is increasing the compulsory education age. The idea is that, by staying longer in school, more students eventually obtain a higher secondary diploma. This paper examines the impact of a one-year increase in compulsory school-age on dropping out at s...

A straightforward way to prevent students from leaving education without a higher secondary diploma is increasing the compulsory education age. The idea is that, by stay-ing longer in school, more students eventually obtain a higher secondary diploma. This paper examines the impact of a one-year increase in compulsory school-age on dropping out at...