Capitalization of Professional Knowledge

The paper analyses the role of vocational education in formation of professional trajectories of Russian employed population during the period 2006-2016. Based on longitudinal data we explore the differences between career paths of workers that had the experience of vocational training and workers without such experience. We contribute the debate regarding vocational training and its role in innovation and economic development utilizing methodology of sequence analysis and Markov chains with long memory (mixture transition distribution models-MTD). MTD models suggest the analysis of categorical data sequences instead of quantitative data that is standard for this kind of research. Such methodological approach allows not only estimating casual effects of participation in vocational education programs on the wage level, but exploring how vocational training influences the whole career trajectory. Our findings suggests that those workers who participate in vocational training have lower probability of loosing the job and of the other negative events in their careers. Moreover, for such workers the current career status is determined by longer history of previous career events than for employees that had not any experience of participation in vocational education programs. These results give the evidence that vocational education is important factor of success on the labor market, providing greater flexibility of career paths that is crucial in innovation development of the labor market and economy as a whole.