6533b82dfe1ef96bd129106b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Capital humain et compétences de base des adultes : production et valorisation

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Basic skills are important in current policies because of high costs generated by illiteracy and supported by the society. The aim of the present thesis is to bring a new contribution on this thematic in a microeconomic approach. It consists of two parts. The first one concerns the valorization of basic skills on the labor market, through chapters 1 and 2, while the second one concerns the production of French skills according to the migratory origins, through chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 1 is about the returns to basic skills on the labor market, in terms of overeducation/undereducation and in terms of wages. The central hypothesis is to assume that education, through the diploma, is not a good filter for individual capacity. Therefore overeducation (undereducation) for the same level of degree, can result from a low (high) level of basic skills and not necessarily an imbalance between supply and demand for skills. Similarly, for a given level of education, there is some heterogeneity in individual capabilities, so we think that the addition of basic skills in the wage function tends to reduce the return of education and to improve the explanation of the wage formation. In order to avoid a possible selection bias in the estimation of wages equation, our approach has the main advantage to take into account the impact of basic skills in job access. Chapter 2 attempts to have a better understanding of the impact of basic skills on job access, but also on the labor force participation, in a general enrichment context of the work content. The inclusion of these skills should improve the explanation of the situations occupied towards the labor market (employment, unemployment, inactivity), especially for groups already weakened in the job access. More precisely, for a given labor demand, we assume that for every situation corresponds a level of basic skills. Reading, writing, listening and reading comprehension skills in French language being essential for a successful integration in French society and labor market. The second part of this thesis focuses on the production process of these basic skills in French among immigrants. Indeed, France has a long tradition of welcoming migrants. Their place in French society and their ability to learn its language generates some interest because little research exist about it. Chapter 3 is where we try to determine to what extent the characteristics associated with the migration background hinders the production of French skills, and to what extent the share of inequality in French scores are due to differences in efficiency because of the linguistic distance between the mother tongue and French. Chapter 4, at last, seeks to determine what are the factors that can explain the proficiency level in written French skills of newcomers (considered as producers of their own skills) in working age. The originality of this chapter is the estimation of a stochastic production frontier to explain the scores in written French and the productive performance.