Existing research generally confirms a countercyclical education enrollment, whereby youths seek shelter in the educational system to avoid hardships in the labor market: the “discouraged worker” thesis. Alternatively, the “encouraged worker” thesis predicts that economic downturns steer individuals away from education because of higher opportunity costs. This study provides a formal test of these opposing theories using data from the United States compared with similar sources from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. I investigate whether macroeconomic stimuli—including recessions and youth unemployment fluctuations—matter for enrollment decisions. Analyses rely on 10 years of detailed individual-level panel data, consisting of birth cohorts across several decades. Across data sources, results show enrollment persistence in secondary education is stronger in response to economic downturns. These patterns differ sharply for tertiary-enrolled students and those who recently left higher education. Surprisingly, U.S. youths display an increased hazard of school leaving and a decreased hazard of educational reenrollment in response to adverse conditions. In contrast, European youths tend to make enrollment decisions supportive of discouraged-worker mechanisms or insensitivity to adverse conditions. The U.S.-specific encouraged-worker mechanism might be explained by the relative importance of market forces in one’s early career and the high costs of university attendance, which induces risk aversion with regard to educational investment. The discussion addresses the consequences for educational inequality.

现有研究通常证实了反周期的教育入学率，即年轻人寻求在教育系统中躲避劳动市场的困境：“受困的工人”论点。另外，“受鼓励的工人”论点预测，由于机会成本较高，经济下滑将使个人远离教育。这项研究使用来自美国的数据与来自英国，德国和瑞典的类似数据进行比较，对这些相反的理论进行了正式测试。我调查了宏观经济刺激因素（包括经济衰退和青年失业率波动）是否会影响入学决策。分析依赖于十年的详细个人级面板数据，其中包括数十年来的出生队列。在各种数据源中，结果表明，随着经济不景气，中学入学率持续上升。对于大专学生和刚离开高等教育的学生来说，这些模式截然不同。出乎意料的是，美国年轻人因不利条件而表现出更高的辍学危险和降低的重新入学危险。相比之下，欧洲青年倾向于通过入学决定来支持沮丧的工人机制或对不利条件不敏感。美国特定的鼓励劳动者机制可以用市场力量在一个人的早期职业中的相对重要性以及大学出勤的高成本来解释，这会导致对教育投资的规避。讨论解决了教育不平等的后果。