Reaching for gold! The impact of a positive reputation shock on career choice

Abstract

We analyze the causal influence of a positive reputation shock for a particular occupation on career choice. In the unpredictable event that a person from one's own country wins a (gold) medal in a particular occupation at the World Championship of Vocational Skills (WorldSkills), searches for apprenticeship vacancies increased significantly by around 7 %. Most importantly, the increase in searches for apprenticeship vacancies in the current year has also led to a 2.5 % increase in the number of contracts signed in the winning occupation, and there are indications that these apprenticeships have a better match between employers and employees. © 2025 The Author(s)

Keywords

Author Keywords

Apprenticeship Occupational choice labor supply Reputation Role model

Index Keywords

Employment occupation labor supply modeling

Author Affiliations

Centre for Research in Economics of Education, University of Bern, Bern, BE, Switzerland, Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education, Aarau, Switzerland, IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, CESifo GmbH, Munich, Bayern, Germany

Centre for Research in Economics of Education, University of Bern, Bern, BE, Switzerland

Funding & Acknowledgements

Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation, SBFI

We thank the Swiss Service Centre for Vocational Education and Training (SDBB | CSFO), especially Marc Fuhrer, for providing the data, valuable assistance, and support. We also thank Andr\u00E9 Burri and Olivier Bienz from SwissSkills for the provision of extra data. Both authors thank the Swiss State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation for financial support through its Leading House on the Economics of Education. The authors declare no conflict of interest. This study uses confidential data from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) and the SDBB | CSFO. The data can be obtained by applying directly to the FSO and the SDBB | CSFO. Replication files are available upon request (daniel.goller@unibe.ch). The usual disclaimer applies.

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Reaching for gold! The impact of a positive reputation shock on career choice

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