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The Role of Education and Economic Growth

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Terrell Hinton aka Kelsey
The Role of Education and Economic Growth

Author Samuel Bowles is a firm believer that Education and Economic Growth go hand in hand, especially in a country like the U.S., where technology is steady changing and great minds are needed in order to keep up! They actually go hand in hand. “While the spread of education has undoubtedly been one cause of economic growth in most countries, the reciprocal relationship is also important. The development of general education in the United States and Europe may be due in large part to the rapid rate of economic and social change, which renders it increasingly difficult to provide adequate socialization and occupational training for youth in the traditional family, church, and apprentice-oriented systems of education. In an era characterized by rapid technological change, urbanization, and shifts in the sectorial and occupational distribution of the labor force, the skills of the fathers do not meet the needs of the sons; indeed, the skills sufficient for the sons in their young manhood may be obsolete before they reach middle age. For this reason education and training have become increasingly specialized, their functions carried out by full-time teachers in institutions designed solely for that purpose, that is, in schools. At the same time, the content of education has become increasingly general, with the stress on literacy and the broader aspects of economic and political socialization of youth rather than on specific occupational skills” states Bowles. “It is probably also true that the individual income elasticity of demand for education as a consumer good exceeds one, resulting in the more rapid growth over time of private expenditures on education than of the economy as a whole. Indeed, in a number of countries, education has been viewed less as a contributor in economic growth than as an integral part of the goal of development itself. The spread of mass education is regarded as evidence of growth.” In other parts of the world, the demand for education may seem not needed, but that is only because the level of economic growth is not one of much expectancy. In the U.S. we as a country are known as leaders in change and innovation. The more our country learns, the more our country grows.

Bowles, S. (1969). Planning educational systems for economic growth . (pp. 4-5). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Economic Studies

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