Academic pipeline attrition, whereby learners exit formal secondary or tertiary education before completion, remains a persistent challenge across many low- and middle-income education systems, and vocational training (VT) has increasingly been promoted as a structured re-entry pathway for such learners. This study applied propensity score matching (PSM) to examine whether uptake of vocational training among academically attrited youth was associated with improved employment, income, and skills-certification outcomes, while accounting for selection bias arising from non-random enrolment into vocational programmes. A cross-sectional analytical design was used, drawing on a simulated cohort of 620 youths who had exited the academic pipeline, of whom 211 (34.0%) subsequently enrolled in vocational training. A multivariable logistic regression model was fitted to estimate propensity scores from ten baseline covariates, followed by 1:1 nearest-neighbour matching without replacement within a 0.2 standard-deviation caliper of the logit propensity score, yielding 185 matched pairs. Covariate balance improved substantially after matching, with the mean absolute standardized mean difference falling from 0.163 to 0.040. In the matched sample, vocational training uptake was associated with a 21.1 percentage-point increase in twelve-month employment (95% CI: 11.1 to 31.0; p