Luận Văn Increasing Returns to Education in the U.S. 1967-97 - an Information Economy Context - Xinchun Niu

Increasing returns to education in the United States, 1967--1997: An information economy context

This study investigates increasing returns to education in an information economy context. It uses an occupation classification scheme based on the dominance of symbolic content (Schement and Lievrouw 1984) to classify occupations into six information occupation categories ("primary producer," "secondary producer," etc.) and one non-information occupation category ("non-information"). It applies OLS regression models to examine returns to education in these occupations and a cross-time decomposition technique to separate the effects on increasing wage differentials by education of increasing returns to education and a shift from non-information to information occupations. It also uses a multinomial logit model to examine individuals' information occupation choices. Using the Current Population Survey 1968-98 data, the estimates produce four major findings. (1) Employment in information occupations is growing, especially in "primary producer" occupations. Employment in "non-information" occupations is declining. In "primary producer" occupations, women's wage earnings caught up with men's across education, yet women have less of a chance than men to work in these occupations. (2) Higher education is not rewarded with higher wages in "non-information" occupations and there is little increase in this relationship over time. On the other hand, rewards for higher education are substantial and are increasing in "primary producer" and "secondary producer" occupations. (3) In "non-information" occupations, a significant wage gap continues to exist between minority and Anglo-American men even for college graduates. In "primary producer" occupations, minorities across education have been able to approach their Anglo-American counterparts in wage earnings. Yet except for Asian-American men, minorities have much lower probability than Anglo-Americans to work in "primary producer" occupations. (4) Except for older women, both increasing returns to education in information occupations and increasing employment among the more educated in "primary producer" occupations contribute to increasing wage differentials by education. Except for older college graduates, increasing employment among women in "primary producer" occupations accounts for much of narrowing wage differentials by gender. With the information occupation classification scheme, the above findings suggest that high and increasing returns to education reflect less the inherent productivity associated with more education than high and increasing returns to the skills that the more educated acquire.
[TABLE="class: citation"]
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[TH]Format:[/TH]
[TD]Dissertation[/TD]
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[TH]Author(s):[/TH]
[TD]Niu, Xinchun[/TD]
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[TR]
[TH]Published:[/TH]
[TD]2002[/TD]
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[TH]Language:[/TH]
[TD]English[/TD]
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