Forced to be Rich? Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Britain *

Do students benefit from compulsory schooling? In an important article, Oreopoulos (2006) studied the 1947 British compulsory schooling law change and found large returns to schooling of about 15% using the General Household Survey (GHS). Re‐analysing this dataset, we find much smaller returns of about 3% on average with no evidence of any positive return for women and a return for men of 4–7%. Additionally, we utilise the New Earnings Survey Panel Data‐set (NESPD) that has earnings information superior to that in the GHS and find similar estimates: zero returns for women and returns of 3 to 4% for men.