Showing papers in "Journal of Human Resources in 1993"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how parents choose to invest in sons' versus daughters' education and the consequences of these choices for women's life chances with retrospective data on the life cycle and family behavior of Taiwanese individuals who came of age from the 1940s onward.
Abstract: Growth in the education of the labor force is one of the most important determinants of economic growth, and the distribution by sex is a key determinant of gender inequality. In this paper, we examine how parents choose to invest in sons' versus daughters' education and the consequences of these choices for women's life chances. We explore this issue with retrospective data on the life cycle and family behavior of Taiwanese individuals who came of age from the 1940s onward. Since the lives of these cohorts encompass one of the most rapid economic and demographic transitions in history, evidence from their experience is of particular value in sorting out alternative hypotheses. Broadly, while contra
513Â citations
Journal Article•
415Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, a cross-section of workers from a representative survey of the Spanish labor force were considered to be those who report that the level of education their jobs require is below the level they have attained, indicating that they have less experience, decreased on-the-job training and higher turnover than other comparable workers.
Abstract: The objective of this article is to explain the job match, which is assessed by comparing attained education and job-required education as reported by workers. We frame our empirical work according to the occupational mobility theory. Using a cross-section of workers from a representative survey of the Spanish labor force, we consider overeducated workers to be those who report that the level of education their jobs require is below the level of education they have attained. Our results indicate that overeducated workers have less experience, decreased on-thejob training and higher turnover than other comparable workers. We also observe an improvement in the job match over age and mobility.
393Â citations
TL;DR: A survey of the evidence on recent trends in the growth of human capital investments in women that raised womens productivity in thus century in most countries is presented in this article, showing that women today are receiving nearly as many years of education as men in industrially advanced high-income countries.
Abstract: This paper surveys the evidence on recent trends in the growth of human capital investments in women that raised womens productivity in thus century in most countries. Patterns in school investments in men and women across regions and across birth cohorts within countries indicate that expected years of school enrollment is converging between low- and high-income countries to where the gaps have closed from about seven years in 1950 to five years in 1985. Women today are receiving nearly as many years of education as men in industrially advanced high-income countries. Latin America South East and East Asia are relatively similar to the high-income countries. At the other extreme in most of the countries of South and West Asia and North and Sub-Saharan Africa women receive about two-fifths to three-fourths the number of years of schooling as men do. In every region however the ratio of female-to-male expected years of enrollment increased from 1950 to 1985. Gender differences in mortality and nutritional status reveal that there has been a dramatic but largely unexplained advance in female longevity relative to male in the 20th century in most countries with the exception of certain countries in South Asia. This development is associated with the shift of populations from dependence on agriculture to working in urban areas. These changes are a major source of decreasing inequality within and between countries in this century. Market failure could be responsible for families investing less than the socially efficient amount in girls than boys. There are problems in measuring without bias these private and social return. Empirical patterns across countries in estimated returns to schooling illustrate that private returns at the primary secondary and higher education levels can vary for women and men.
285Â citations
TL;DR: It is found that broad availability of drugs in a medical facility is positively related to medical care use and that health care demand decreases with user fees and with greater distance to the provider, but increases with income.
Abstract: Underutilization of medical facilities in African countries is widely believed to be a result of consumer disappointments with quality of care. This paper uses data from a randomized household survey, enriched with exogenous information on health facility attributes, to examine more deeply the quality factor in health care demand in rural Kenya. We find that broad availability of drugs in a medical facility is positively related to medical care use. Contrary to intuitive expectations, lack of prescription drugs is also positively related to medical care demand, while lack of aspirin reduces demand. We explain this counter-intuitive result by noting that any measure of availability of a consumable input is evidence of both demand and supply. Demand may be positively correlated with lack of drugs, for example, precisely because there is excess demand for available supplies. The results indicate the importance of selecting truly exogenous indicators of service quality for demand analysis. We also find that health care demand decreases with user fees and with greater distance to the provider, but increases with income. Gender is not a significant determinant of the choice of medical care in this dataset-whether considered separately or interacted with service variables.
283Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors construct an equilibrium job-matching model where workers differ in their attachment to the labor force and find that workers with weaker attachment to labor market will receive lower starting wages and lower post-training wages, and will be placed in jobs that offer less training and use less capital.
Abstract: This paper constructs an equilibrium job-matching model where workers differ in their attachment to the labor force. The model predicts that workers with weaker attachment to the labor market will receive lower starting wages and lower post-training wages, and will be placed in jobs that offer less training and use less capital. The implications of the model for gender differences in pay and job assignment are tested with the EOPP data set. Ourfindings suggest that while training intensity during the first three months of employment is similar in positions filled by males and females, females are employed in positions that have a shorter duration of on-the-job training and that use less capital. These differences in on-the-job training and capital in positions filled by men and women, as well as a lower market value for women's prior labor market experience, account for a substantial part of the gap in wages between males and females.
217Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, a wide range across countries in the percentage of total enrollments that attend private rather than public schools is observed, and it is hypothesized that the large %PVT at the secondary level in developing countries is hypothesized to stem from limited public spending, which creates an excess demand from people who would prefer to use the public schools but are involuntarily excluded and pushed into the private sector.
Abstract: We observe a wide range across countries in the percentage of total enrollments that attend private rather than public schools This paper seeks to explain 1) the systematically higher proportion of private enrollments (%PVT) in developing as compared with developed countries at the secondary level, and 2) the seemingly random variation across countries within a given level of education and stage of development I argue that the latter is due to differentiated demand and nonprofit supply, both of which stem from cultural heterogeneity, especially religious heterogeneity In contrast, the large %PVT at the secondary level in developing countries is hypothesized to stem from limited public spending, which creates an "excess demand" from people who would prefer to use the public schools but are involuntarily excluded and pushed into the private sector The limited public spending on secondary education, in turn, is modelled as a collective decision which is strongly influenced by the
208Â citations
TL;DR: This article used detailed information on work experience, tenure, and on-the-job training collected in the 1976 and 1985 questionnaires of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to account for changes in wage differentials between white men and white women over these nine years.
Abstract: This study uses detailed information on work experience, tenure, and on-the-job training collected in the 1976 and 1985 questionnaires of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to account for changes in wage differentials between white men and white women over these nine years. Decompositions of changes in the wage gap are used to illustrate the contribution of individual factors. Between 1976 and 1985 the wage gap between white men and women narrowed by approximately 4 percent. This study finds that nearly 50 percent of this reduction was due to average changes in job tenure and other work history variables over this period.
187Â citations
TL;DR: This article found that most individuals who enroll in post-secondary education but fail to complete credentials have no higher earnings than high school graduates, and the results indicated a fundamental difference between labor markets for college graduates and the sub-baccalaureate labor market.
Abstract: This paper estimates the returns to postsecondary education using the National Longitudinal Survey of the Class of 1972, with earnings measured at about age 32. The results are based on transcripts, rather than self-reports about the amount of education, allowing postsecondary education to be more precisely described than usual. The results confirm the well-known returns to B.A. degrees. Other credentials-associate degrees, and certificates for women-also lead to higher earnings and wage rates, though indirectly: these credentials gain individuals access to jobs where they accumulate more experience and on-the-job training, but provide no further advantage once experience and OJT are controlled. Most individuals who enroll in postsecondary education but fail to complete credentials have no higher earnings than high school graduates. The effects of experience, high school achievement, and family background are familiar. The results indicate a fundamental difference between labor markets for college graduates and the sub-baccalaureate labor market.
187Â citations
TL;DR: The authors found that between 1973 and 1988, private-sector unionism fell by 9.5 percentage points more for men than women, and the gender wage gap (one minus the ratio of female to male wages) decreased by.09.
Abstract: Between 1973 and 1988, private-sector unionism fell by 9.5 percentage points more for men than women, and the gender wage gap (one minus the ratio of female to male wages) decreased by.09. These trends support two findings: First, unionism fell more slowly for women primarily because the probability of unionism fell most rapidly in jobs dominated by males. Second, the greater decline in unionism among males is responsible for approximately one-seventh of the.09 decline in the gender wage gap.
175Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty using an axiomatically sound, additively decomposable index of aggregate poverty has been proposed and compared with alternative methods of measuring poverty persistence.
Abstract: This paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty using an axiomatically sound, additively decomposable index of aggregate poverty. Our approach is contrasted with alternative methods of measuring poverty persistence. We use our method to measure chronic and transitory poverty in the United States during the 1980s and late 1970s and find that chronic poverty is a more serious problem than previously thought. Between the late 1970s and mid 1980s poverty not only increased, it became more chronic and less transitory in nature. This is true for the population as a whole and for some, but not all, of the subpopulations we considered. The latter were defined according to race, type of social unit, and educational qualifications of the head of the social unit. All empirical analyses are based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the relatively high wage losses of high experience displaced workers are primarily due to their heightened sensitivity to downturns in their state, industry, and occupation.
Abstract: Many studies have shown that displaced workers experience substantial wage reductions that are strongly related to their predisplacement job tenure and experience. This paper is an assessment of whether firm closures or downturns in more broadly defined labor markets drive the extreme wage losses of high tenure, high experience displaced workers. I show that the relatively high wage losses of high experience displaced workers are primarily due to their heightened sensitivity to downturns in their state, industry, and occupation. However, the large wage losses of high tenure displaced workers are not explained by their sensitivity to these local downturns. One interpretation of these facts is that firm specialization is linked primarily to firm-specific experience, but not to general labor market experience.
TL;DR: For example, this article found that women who work despite having observed characteristics that discourage employment are much more likely to work part-time than women who do not work, and that the difference in a woman's expected wage offers between full-time and parttime employment is an important determinant of whether she works full time, while her income mainly affects the decision of whether to work.
Abstract: Strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that women receive lower wage offers in part-time jobs than in full-time jobs is provided by estimation of wage offer functions for British women, which control for self-selection into these two types of jobs. Analysis of married women's employment decisions indicates that the difference in a woman's expected wage offers between full-time and part-time employment is an important determinant of whether she works full time, while husband's income mainly affects the decision of whether to work. In addition, it appears that women who work despite having observed characteristics that discourage employment are much more likely to work part time.
TL;DR: This paper investigated the socioeconomic determinants of adult ill-health in developing countries and found that women report more problems and at earlier ages than do men; this despite the greater longevity of women.
Abstract: This study investigates the socioeconomic determinants of adult ill-health in developing countries. The authors use as measures of health self-reported general health plus a variety of measures of problems in physical functioning. The authors begin by comparing measures of adult ill-health in 4 countries: Bangladesh Jamaica Malaysia and the US. finding that women report more problems and at earlier ages than do men; this despite the greater longevity of women. They examine the sensitivity of these gender differentials to mortality selection and find that while accounting for this does cut down the differentials they remain. The authors discuss potential reasons for these findings and then examine in more detail the Jamaican data. They formulate and estimate a reduced form economic model focusing on the effect of education. They find strong positive effects of own education on health mirroring results commonly found in the child health literature. At older ages however the education differential disappears. Per capita household expenditure treated as endogenous is added to the model to attempt to control for long run income. It is not found to affect adult female health but limited evidence is found for an effect on males. Strong residential effects exist although the factors behind it remain to be investigated. The most robust finding is that even controlling for socioeconomic covariates strong life-cycle effects exist and are different for men and women. Controlling for these factors women still report more health problems at earlier ages than do men. (authors)
TL;DR: The authors investigated whether intercollegiate athletic participation affects scholarly success and found that athletes do not do as well in the classroom as regular students, and that the exploitation of athletes extends beyond the sidelines and into the classroom.
Abstract: We investigate whether intercollegiate athletic participation affects scholarly success. The overall means of course grades suggest that athletes do not do as well in the classroom as regular students. Background factors explain this underperformance for most sports; athletes come to school with lower SAT scores and poorer high school preparation. However, players in the revenue sports do worse even accounting for this. We investigate the cause of this unexplained underperformance: We find that it is a seasonal phenomenon. To us, this means that the exploitation of athletes extends beyond the sidelines and into the classroom.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present evidence that employers in rural areas of developing countries have imperfect information with regard to the productivity of heterogeneous workers, and evaluate the extent to which casual labor markets do, in fact, exhibit these attributes.
Abstract: In this essay, we present evidence that employers in rural areas of developing countries have imperfect information with regard to the productivity of heterogeneous workers. In addition to obtaining direct measures of the completeness of employer information we consider the implications of information asymmetries for the structure of casual labor markets. We then evaluate the extent to which casual labor markets do, in fact, exhibit these attributes. We find that: (1) there is adverse selection out of the time-rate labor market; (2) employers discriminate statistically: given two workers with different observed characteristics but the same actual productivity, the worker from the group with the higher average productivity will have a higher wage; (3) employers exhibit learning over time: the extent of employer ignorance is negatively related to labor-market exposure on the part of the workers; and (4) calorie consumption affects productivity but is not rewarded in the time-rate labor market. In concluding we argue that an analysis of wage and employment patterns and the implications of these patterns for human capital investment in rural areas of developing countries that ignored the role of information problems could yield misleading conclusions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that males have significantly lower returns to secondary and tertiary schooling than females, and that these differences are greatest at the level of Diploma 1 and vocational secondary education, but are still substantial for nonvocational secondary schooling and university education.
Abstract: Earnings data on a nationally representative sample of Indonesian adults show that males have significantly lower returns to secondary and tertiary schooling than females. These differences are greatest at the level of Diploma 1 and vocational secondary education, but are still substantial for nonvocational secondary schooling and university education. The estimated returns to schooling are also greater for older cohorts than for younger cohorts, although the inter-cohort differences are identical for males and females. It appears that women in Indonesia have been acquiring secondary and tertiary education in relatively larger numbers than men in recent years, perhaps in response to the greater relative returns to female higher education. However, there is still a gap between male and female enrollments at the secondary and tertiary levels. The analysis in this paper does not show many strong and systematic gender differences in the effects of household and community characteristics on school enrollments.
TL;DR: In this article, a switching bivariate probit model of pension coverage and turnover is developed to estimate the effect of each of these factors, and the results show that capital losses are the main reason responsible for lower turnover in jobs covered by pensions, but self-selection and compensation levels also play an important role.
Abstract: A well-known, if underappreciated, finding in the mobility literature is that turnover is much lower in jobs covered by pensions than in other jobs. This could result from capital losses for job changes created by most benefit formulas, the tendency of turnover-prone individuals to avoid jobs covered by pensions, or higher overall compensation levels in such jobs. A switching bivariate probit model of pension coverage and turnover is developed to estimate the effect of each of these factors. The results show that capital losses are the main factor responsible for lower turnover in jobs covered by pensions, but self-selection and compensation levels also play an important role. This is the first direct evidence that bonding is important for understanding long-term employment relationships.
TL;DR: In this paper, an approach to defining poverty through a "Basic Needs Budget" (BNB) is presented which takes account of families' differing needs for child care and transportation, and of regional differences in housing costs.
Abstract: An approach to defining poverty through a "Basic Needs Budget" (BNB) is presented which takes account of families' differing needs for child care and transportation, and of regional differences in housing costs. Taxes and noncash benefits from governmental and private sources are also accounted for. The BNB poverty rate for single parents for 1989 is 47 percent, compared to 39 percent under the official method; almost a quarter of single parents holding full-time jobs are counted as poor under the BNB method. Radical reduction in both the welfare rolls and the poverty rate would require government assurance of child care and medical care to single parents.
TL;DR: In this article, a dynamic model of fertility incorporating stochastic fertility control uncertain child traits and information accumulation from which they can formulate a rigorous definition of child-specific unwantedness.
Abstract: In this paper we assess the value of retrospectively-ascertained information on the wantedness of children....We formulate a dynamic model of fertility incorporating stochastic fertility control uncertain child traits and information accumulation from which we can formulate a rigorous definition of child-specific unwantedness. Based on information on both retrospectively obtained and pre-birth information on wantedness and on childrens birthweight we find that parents are more likely to report that children are wanted ex post if they have a better birth outcome and exhibit overly optimistic expectations about their childrens traits and/or risk preferences. As a consequence published statistics on the prevalence of unwanted births overstate the true proportion due to contraceptive failure by 26 percent. The geographical focus is on the United States. (EXCERPT)
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used a fixed-effects estimator on a long panel, the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men (NLS), to estimate inter-industry wage differentials.
Abstract: Estimates of interindustry wage differentials are obtained using a fixed-effects estimator on a long panel, the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men (NLS). After controlling for observable worker characteristics, 84 percent of the residual variance of log wages across industries is explained by individual fixedeffects. Only 16 percent of the residual variance is "explained" by industry dummies. Since no controls for specific job characteristics are used, job characteristics that vary across industries could potentially explain this rather small residual across-industry log wage variance that is not attributable to individual effects. Clearly, then, these data do not force us to resort to noncompetitive explanations of interindustry wage differentials, such as efficiency wage theory. Furthermore, efficiency wage theories predict that wages in efficiency wage paying (or primary) industries should be relatively rigid. Therefore, industry wage differentials should widen in recessions. However, no such tendency is found in the data.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore why registered nurses employed in nonprofit nursing homes earn higher wages than those employed in proprietary facilities, and test an alternative explanation of sectoral wage differences which is predicated on the reason for the coexistence offor-profit and nonprofit firms in a given industry.
Abstract: This study explores why registered nurses employed in nonprofit nursing homes earn higher wages than those employed in proprietary facilities. Previous studies have explained this finding in a property rights context, where higher wages were posited to result from the weaker incentives for cost minimization accompanying nonprofit status. This paper tests an alternative explanation of sectoral wage differences which is predicated on the reason for the coexistence offor-profit and nonprofit firms in a given industry. Informational constraints concerning the quality of care are posited to cause the long-term health care market to fail to provide care at the upper levels of a quality of care continuum. Nonprofits are viewed as a response to this form of market failure, acting to fulfill customers demand for higher quality (and higher cost) long-term care, with attendant demand for higher quality nurses than in for-profit homes. Both the observed sectoral pattern in selectivity, and wage decompositions based on selectivity corrected wage regressions, call into question the property right explanation yet are consistent with an asymmetric information explanation.
TL;DR: The authors decomposes unemployment into its structural and cyclical components and investigates their impact on income distribution, controlling for the influence of inflation, showing that increases in structural unemployment have a substantial impact on the distribution of income.
Abstract: This is the first study that decomposes unemployment into its structural and cyclical components and investigates their impact on income distribution, controlling for the influence of inflation. Increases in structural unemployment have a substantial ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed an improved way of treating experience in estimating wage equations for women when measures of actual experience are lacking. And they showed that using a predicted value for experience from occupation-specific equations estimated on another data set containing actual experience is preferable to using either potential experience or predicted experience without taking account of the woman's occupation.
Abstract: This paper proposes an improved way of treating experience in estimating wage equations for women when measures of actual experience are lacking. It shows that using a predicted value for experience from occupation-specific equations estimated on another data set containing actual experience is preferable to using either potential experience (time since school leaving) or predicted experience without taking account of the woman's occupation. Results also show that the use of potential experience may bias the estimated impact offactors such as race and schooling on women's wages.
TL;DR: Investigating the interactions of secondary vocational training and training-related occupation on the wage of the first job obtained in the two years immediately after high school finds that large positive coefficients are associated with work in a training- related occupation when the type of occupation is omitted from the model.
Abstract: This paper investigates the interactions of secondary vocational training and training-related occupation on the wage of the first job obtained in the two years immediately after high school Prior empirical tests of the importance of a training-related occupation in determining labor market outcomes are misspecified because they do not separate training-related effects from effects of the type of occupation entered Since the concept of a training-related occupation is based on a match between the type of training and the type of occupation, it is possible that apparent effects of a training-related occupation are, in fact, only an effect of the occupation with which the training is matched We use data from the younger cohort of the High School and Beyond sample to conduct an evaluation of the importance of a training-related occupation Our findings agree with past research in that large positive coefficients are associated with work in a training-related occupation when the type of occupation is omitted from the model However, when the type of occupation is included, nearly all the effects on wage are associated with occupation and not with training nor with a training-related occupation Estimates from both OLS and switching regressions are consistent with these conclusions
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of workers' compensation income benefits on injury rates and on the distribution of injuries by severity was studied and the authors developed econometric models for correlated counts of injuries that are estimated on a longitudinal data set of 2,798 manufacturing establishments.
Abstract: This paper studies the impact of workers' compensation income benefits on injury rates and on the distribution of injuries by severity. I develop econometric models for correlated counts of injuries that are estimated on a longitudinal data set of 2,798 manufacturing establishments. I find that higher benefits increase the frequencies of most nonfatal injuries, but reduce the frequency of fatalities. Also, higher benefits increase the probability that a given injury involves days away from work, but reduces the chance that it is a fatality or a minor injury.
TL;DR: This article found that between 1979 and 1989, men's average earnings declined and the percentage of men with low earnings increased, and that much of the decline in mean earnings and the increased incidence of low earnings can be attributed to changes in the returns to education, experience, and industry of employment-changes that they attribute to demand side factors, such as changes in technology.
Abstract: Between 1979 and 1989, men's average earnings declined and the percentage of men with low earnings increased. Much of the decline in mean earnings and the increased incidence of low earnings can be accounted for by changes in the returns to education, experience, and industry of employment-changes that we attribute to demand-side factors, such as changes in technology. Shifts in industrial employment patterns had a relatively small effect on mean earnings and low earnings rates. However, their effects were larger among blacks than among whites and Hispanics. We also find that educational upgrading over the decade kept mean earnings from falling even further and helped to hold down the growth of low earnings, especially among blacks.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper investigated whether intercollegiate athletic participation affects scholarly success and found that athletes do not do as well in the classroom as regular students, and that the exploitation of athletes extends beyond the sidelines and into the classroom.
Abstract: We investigate whether intercollegiate athletic participation affects scholarly success. The overall means of course grades suggest that athletes do not do as well in the classroom as regular students. Background factors explain this underperformance for most sports; athletes come to school with lower SAT scores and poorer high school preparation. However, players in the revenue sports do worse even accounting for this. We investigate the cause of this unexplained underperformance: We find that it is a seasonal phenomenon. To us, this means that the exploitation of athletes extends beyond the sidelines and into the classroom.
TL;DR: A Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate economic determinants of the conditional probability of first nursing home entry during a 34-month period for a panel of disabled older persons who resided in the community at the initial survey.
Abstract: A Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate economic determinants of the conditional probability of first nursing home entry during a 34-month period for a panel of disabled older persons who resided in the community at the initial survey. Allowing for death that competes with first entry and end-ofsurvey censoring produced the following results. Wealth significantly reduces the hazard of nursing home entry. The price elasticity of the hazard of nursing home entry is estimated to be -0.7. Also, nursing home entry is positively related to the opportunity cost of informal caregiver time faced by the family.