Returns to bachelor’s and master’s degree in tertiary education: the case of the Czech Republic after the Bologna Process

The primary objective of this study was to analyse the development of the effect of the bachelor’s and master’s tertiary degree on both respondents’ wage and socioeconomic status in the Czech labour market ten years after the Bologna Process. For the purposes
of the study, structural modelling was applied using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2010–2017) and Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC, 2011/12) data. The results revealed that despite a slightly decreasing direct effect of the master’s degree on wages, the association between the master’s degree and socioeconomic status intensified. Compared to that, the bachelor’s degree exhibited a stable direct effect on wages but a decreasing effect on socioeconomic status. While relatively stable overall returns to tertiary education can be supposed based on total effects, the channels through which the stability is reached may differ for the bachelor’s and master’s degrees.