Search Results

Skill development in college and on the job can depend not only on the quality of investments but also on the order in which these investments are made. The second chapter explores which types of occupational investments complement college best when performed before college entry and which types are more productive after college completion. A learning-by-doing model with both college entry timing and early-career occupation choices produces several key insights. Data from the NLSY79 are linked with abstract and routine occupational task content data, and relationships between college entry timing, early-career occupation choices, and future earnings trajectories are documented. Estimates suggest that abstract-intensive occupations are more beneficial for skill development just after college, whereas routine-intensive occupations are more beneficial for skill development before college. Accordingly, delayed college entrants choose more routine-intensive early-career occupations, and immediate college entrants choose more abstract-intensive early-career occupations. The results also indicate that high school graduates with high levels of abstract skills face the largest penalty for delaying college entry.

The second essay, joint with Ben Griffy, Bryan Engelhardt and Peter Rupert, asks the question: Is the arrival rate of a job independent of the wage that it pays? We answer this question by testing how, and to what extent, unemployment insurance changes the hazard rate of leaving unemployment across the wage distribution using a Mixed Proportional Hazard Competing Risk Model and data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Controlling for worker characteristics we reject that job arrival rates are independent of the wages offered. We apply the results to several prominent job-search models and interpret how our findings are key to determining the efficacy of unemployment insurance.

In Chapter 2, I study the impacts of entry conditions on labor market outcomes to cognitive and social skills for the US college graduating classes of 1979-1989. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I find that Workers with higher cognitive skills are more likely to be employed, find jobs more quickly and have higher-quality employment, while those with higher social skills voluntarily switch jobs more often. I also show that graduating in a worse economy intensifies the roles of social skills, allowing workers with higher social skills to catch up more quickly from poor initial conditions by switching jobs more often. This could partly explain why wage returns to cognitive skills declines but wage returns to social skills increases from graduating in recessions.

Descriptive analyses reveal that among the population represented by NLSY79, about one-third of the college attenders delayed initial college entry, with more than one-quarter of college delayers entering 10 years or more after high school graduation. Delayers are more likely to have commenced studies at two-year colleges and to have chosen a major field of study in STEM than non-delayers, a tendency that appears to become more pronounced for those who delay entry the longest. Of those who enrolled (with or without delay), about two-thirds ended a first enrollment spell without earning a degree and, of those, seventy-five percent returned later re-enrolled at the same or a different college to continue their studies. Generally, non-delayers were more likely than delayers to complete a degree by the end of the first enrollment spell, to return for a second enrollment spell if they had not earned a degree, and to complete a degree eventually. However, periods of enrollment following interruptions do appear to enable completion of degrees. Interestingly, among delayers who also interrupted college enrollment, those w ho started at two-year colleges and later went on to four-year colleges ended up with a bachelor’s degree at a higher rate than those who started at four-year colleges.

Through a novel application of multilevel growth curve modeling, associations between college timing decisions and the level and rate of growth of earnings trajectories were explored by gender, college type, and degree completion. The results point to several important and, in some respects, counterintuitive findings. First, the relationship between initial college enrollment delay and changes in earnings at, during, and after initial college enrollment differed between women and men. Second, among those who delay initial college enrollment, those attending a four-year college without earning a bachelor’s degree fared worst in terms of lifetime earnings. Third, men who delayed entry and earned an associate degree at the end of the first college enrollment spell manifested lower earnings trajectories than men who did not receive the degree. Men who stayed longer in college or earned the associate degree following at least two interruptions appeared to fare somewhat better. Fourth, short-term interruptions appear to have been more favorable to earnings trajectories than short-term delays in college entry. Fifth, for those who leave the first college enrollment without earning a degree, returning to college appears to result in higher earnings than if they had not re-enrolled provided that the interruption was short or a degree is earned at the end of the second enrollment spell.

Taken together, the findings suggest the relevance of college timing decisions in accounting for differences in earnings trajectories. While explanations likely reside in labor market conditions, college practices and access to finance (subsidies in particular) at each age and stage as the cohort passed through the young adult years into middle age, specific implications for college practices and higher edu cation policy follow. Colleges, whether four- or two-year, might draw on both the magnitudes of the patterns and then pursue inquiries to gauge the extent to which existing practices enable and support choices that can be best aligned to learning goals. Further, a particular need is for more complete information on the consequences of timing choices. Policies establishing eligibility for student financial aid subsidies and loans can be evaluated, in the light of financing constraints that might oblige delays, interruptions, barriers to re-enroll, or shorter enrollment spells that are less favorable in terms of eventual earnings trajectories. Further, accreditation might allow for more nuanced appraisal of campus effectiveness with respect to conventional measures of retention and completion.

Future research to extend and apply the results of this study might consist of replication that tracks a more recent youth cohort, to gauge the extent to which the patterns of college timing decisions and their associations with earnings trajectories persist, under different college practices, financing arrangements, and labor market opportunities and constraints. In addition, future research might undertake more detailed, complete cost-benefit calculations evaluated at each age/stage of college timing decisions.

The first chapter uniquely documents the emerging role of education in the well known decline in U.S. male working hours. An insignificant hours difference between high school and college graduates becomes a highly significant 2 hours/week advantage for college graduates within a generation. This growing college hours premium is confirmed in alternate data over a longer time period. Moreover, the growing premium exists throughout the distribution and is not generated by the tails. The increasing premium persists across a wide variety of robustness checks and presents as a widespread phenomenon. The emerging college hours premium increases the overall college earnings premium despite recent trends in the college wage premium.

The second chapter uniquely shows that the returns to drinking in social jobs exceed those in non-social jobs. While workers’ social skills yield higher returns in social jobs, controlling for these skills does not change the returns to drinking. This suggests a return beyond sorting on measured social skills. The higher returns in social jobs remain when including individual fixed effects and in a series of robustness exercises. The findings fit the hypothesis that drinking assists the formation of social capital in social jobs. The social capital associated with drinking represents both general and specific capital with a higher return to each in social jobs.

The third chapter examines the relationship between education and the changes to occupational sorting in the US. I show a college degree is associated with sorting into all high skill occupations, but is less associated with sorting into high social skill occupations within one generation. I uniquely show that when considering the importance in skills in job sorting, the relationship between both social and math skills determines sorting for the latter generation.