We present the first estimates of the returns to years of schooling before 1940 using a large sample of individuals (from the 1915 Iowa State Census). The returns to a year of high school or college were substantial in 1915-about 11 percent for all males and in excess of 12 percent for young males. Education enabled individuals to enter lucrative white-collar jobs, but sizable educational wage differentials also existed within occupational groups. Returns were substantial even for those in farming. We find, using U.S. census data, that returns to education decreased between 1915 and 1940 and again during the 1940s. T he distribution of earings is substantially shaped by a race between technology and education.' There are times when technology forges ahead and the wage structure widens. At other times, education makes great strides and the distribution narrows. The first few decades of the twentieth century witnessed both changes. America moved decisively ahead in education by putting the majority of its youth through high school, a feat no other country would match for many decades to come. At the same time, there was enormously growing demand for skilled workers in the office and on production jobs.2 A considerable amount is now known about the increase in education among Americans in the twentieth century. But we know far less about the stock of educated Americans, occupations by education, the pecuniary retums to education, and the role of formal schooling in advancing productivity during the first half of the twentieth century. In large measure, our ignorance owes to data deficiencies. The 1940 U.S. population census was the first to inquire about education and earnings. This article remedies some of

/pdf/education-and-income-in-the-early-twentieth-century-evidence-3w8m8b4v20.pdf

Education and Social Structure: An Historical Study of Iowa, 1870-1930. Final Report.

Education and Income in the Early Twentieth Century: Evidence from the Prairies

We present the first estimates of the returns to years of schooling before 1940 using a large sample of men and women, employed in a variety of sectors and occupations, from the Iowa State Census of 1915. We find that the returns to a year of high school, and to a year of college, were substantial in 1915 - about 11 percent for all males and in excess of 12 percent for young males. Some of the return to years of high school and college arose because more education allowed individuals to enter lucrative white-collar jobs. But we also find sizable educational wage differentials within the white- and blue-collar sectors. Returns to education above the 'common school' grades were substantial even within the agricultural sector. Given the high overall rate of return to secondary schooling, it is no wonder that the 'high school movement' took root in America around 1910, even in agricultural areas such as Iowa. Census data for 1940, 1950, and 1960 are used to show that returns to years of schooling were greater in 1915 than in 1940. We conclude that the return to education decreased sometime between 1915 and 1940 and then declined again during the 1940s.

Education and Income in the Early 20th Century: Evidence from the Prairies

Around 15 years ago I received a manuscript from the University of Chicago Press on rural schooling in the Middle West. Having appraised the work I sent a critical report to the editor. The author, I felt, gave the country school too sentimental an assessment, and although the research was voluminous, it lacked any statistical foundation to assess the representativeness of the documentary evidence. I was surprised to learn later that the press had published the manuscript with virtually no changes. The author turned out to be the historian Wayne Fuller, and his book, The Old Country School (Fuller 1982), became the standard source on the subject.l I mention this anecdote not only to highlight the quirks of publishing practiced by university presses Chicago presumably published the book partly because of its appeal to a lay audience, and Fuller's nostalgic rendition appealed to the general reader but also because the work under review makes some effort to confront my misgivings about Fuller's reverence for this venerable institution. Theobald's book appeared originally as a 1990 University of Illinois doctorate in education. The volume's most valuable contribution is its critical assessment of the country school. Unlike Fuller, whose descriptive history painted a portrait of rural education in the rosiest of colors, Theobald profitably ransacked the literature of history and the history of education to formulate hypotheses to explain change in rural schooling in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He employed the ethnocultural model of voting behavior to give fresh insights into antebellum conflicts over the initiation of the common school in the Middle West; he used ideas about migration to point to class formation in rural

Country Schooling in the Heartland

https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8818&context=annals-of-iowa

Pioneers in Quantitative History at the University of Iowa

/pdf/education-and-social-structure-an-historical-study-of-iowa-z48t7fj1tx.pdf

Education and Social Structure: An Historical Study of Iowa, 1870-1930. Final Report.

Citations

Education and Income in the Early Twentieth Century: Evidence from the Prairies

Education and Income in the Early 20th Century: Evidence from the Prairies

Country Schooling in the Heartland

Pioneers in Quantitative History at the University of Iowa

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