Tuesday 09 December 2025 12:00 - 13:30

SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH

About this event

Internships may play an important role in shaping labour market inequality. Using Dutch admin data, we show that the richest university students are 38% more likely to do an internship than the poorest students. This inequality matters. The literature has found long-term wage returns to doing an internship between five and ten percent, and we show that internships are associated with 12% of income inequality seven years after graduation. In our paper, we investigate what creates the differences in who does internships. High school exam scores don't explain any of the inequality between rich and poor, however, selection into university programs can explain 23% of the inequality. We study the importance of family connections using a causal design that compares siblings and find that connections explain at least nine percent of the inequality. Lastly, we show evidence that the opportunity costs of doing an internship may be important as well.

Participants are expected to adhere to the CEP Events Code of Conduct.

Directions

This event will take place in SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH.

The building is labelled SAL on the LSE campus map. You can also find us on Google Maps. For further information, go to contact us.

Labour Economics Workshops are part of the CEP's Labour Markets programme.