We will use administrative data on all private sector employees in Austria to investigate the impact of generousity of the leave program on program take-up. We will exploit variation generated by a 2008 reform to estimate its causal effects using a regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference design. We will also examine whether the reform has had heterogeneous effects on participation in lifelong learning for different subgroups of the labor force.

We will investigate whether participation in lifelong learning programs has a positive impact on participants' wages and careers. Specifically, we will analyze whether the reform had an effect on the difference between pre- and post-participation wages and which subgroups show the largest benefit from taking educational leave.

Does lifelong learning increase the resilience to macroeconomic shocks? We will answer this question using employment data around the period of the Great Recession.