3G internet diffusion and secondary education attainment: Evidence of opportunity cost in Viet Nam

While mobile internet diffusion in the last decade has led to significant growth and improvements in household income and employment, much less has been studied on education attainment outcomes, which matter especially for developing countries’ human capital policies for development catch-up. In this paper, we find that 3G internet diffusion improves lower-secondary school attainment but discourages upper-secondary achievement of youth in Viet Nam. We rationalize these findings through an education – employment tradeoff perspective by considering the opportunity costs of schooling vis `a vis employment. We show that the diffusion of fast mobile broadband internet is associated with more job opportunities and reduced returns to schooling during the period 2012-2016 following fast diffusion. Our results offer implications for developing countries’ education and human capital development policies in the age of (mobile) digitalization.