Factors Influencing the Salary Expectations among Macedonian Students: A Comparative Perspective with the EU Students

The aim of this paper is to assess the salary expectations of Macedonian students, and the main factors that shape their expectations. Previous research elsewhere has shown that salary expectation is a major determinant that influences schooling decisions (Williams and Gordon, 1981; Betts, 1996; Wolter and Zbinden, 2001). Given that the main pathway to developing the human capital of an individual is schooling, learning about the factors that affect an individual’s decision whether to acquire more education can contribute towards better educational policy in any given country. We employ a similar empirical approach as the one used by Brunello et al. (2001, 2004). We use all available information to regress: i) expected future earnings right after graduation from university and ii) expected future earnings 10 years after graduation from university, on a set of variables which include: the characteristics of the individual, their socio-economic background, the chosen field of study, the year of enrolment (junior or senior students), academic performance, sources of information for future earnings and the country of future employment, and the perceived employability and costs of studies. Our findings show that expected university earnings are significantly correlated with the father’s education, year of study, sources of information on earnings in the labour market, gender, ethnicity, regular job during studies, perceived employability, the chosen field of study and the country of future employment. In other words, Macedonian students form their salary expectations in a similar vein to those of their European counterparts.The major contribution of this study is to provide a pioneering study of salary expectations of Macedonian students, as well as providing a comparative analysis of the salary expectations of students in Macedonia and their peer colleagues from the EU Member States.