During the past half-century, there has been a trend toward increasing the minimum age a child must reach before entering school in the United States. States have accomplished this by moving the school-entry cutoff date earlier in the school year. The evidence presented in this paper shows that these law changes increased human capital…

This paper examines the effect of oral health on labor market outcomes by exploiting variation in fluoridated water exposure during childhood. The politics surrounding the adoption of water fluoridation by local governments suggests exposure to fluoride is exogenous to other factors affecting earnings. Exposure to fluoridated water increases…

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the 1960s-80s to the increasing generosity of Social…

The most important reason for the difference in the average pay of men and women is the clustering of women in lower paying jobs. (Author)

Current Population Survey data from 1979 and 1991 were used to decompose changes in the gender wage gap into three components: skill distribution, wage structure, and improvements in women's position. Relative wage gains by women may have been a source of increasing wage inequality among men. (SK)

Using data on 271 jobs, a study showed that both worker characteristics (education, months employed or unemployed) and job characteristics (skills, mental and physical demands, tools) are determinants of pay. Females tend to hold jobs of lower value to the organization, which explains part of the male-female pay differential. (SK)

We analyze the female-male gap in starting-salary offers for new college graduates using data from the annual surveys of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), unique (and proprietary) data that have not previously been used for this purpose. A major advantage of working with a data set on salaries for new college graduates is…

A study examined schooling, weekly and annual working hours, and hourly earnings of women organized into nine birth cohorts, 1920 to 1964. Many more women are working now than did 20 years ago. The gap between the work of married and unmarried women has narrowed. Schooling and wage differences have widened in recent cohorts. (SK)

Models of aggregate production are estimated and used to investigate the effects of changes in labor force composition on the recently observed decline in the earnings of college graduates relative to other workers and on the fall in the earnings of younger workers relative to older workers. (Author/SSH)

Provides estimates of the impact of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) programs on participants' postprogram earnings using matched comparison groups developed from a "nearest-neighbor" matching technique. Results indicate that CETA has a negative and statistically significant earnings impact for adult men, and a modest,…

Application of single and simultaneous equation fixed-effects and random-effects shows that earnings appreciation with experience and depreciation with labor market interruptions are comparable for men and women. Adjusting for heterogeneity reduces the wage gap to 20%; adjusting for endogeneity reduces it nearly to zero. (SK)

A study showing the sharp decline in women physicians' earnings once they are married and faced with family responsibilities is presented.

Updates and reexamines Kehrer's 1973 survey of women and men physicians and factors affecting their income differential. It also compares economic indicators of demand for office-based services for men and women physicians to determine whether there is evidence of discrimination by potential patients against women physicians. (CT)

Looks at the simultaneous labor force participation and hours of work decisions for Japanese wives, both employees and family workers. Although the estimated aggregate wage and income fluctuations for employees are somewhat higher than previous estimates for the United States, they are of the same order of magnitude. (JOW)

With data from the Survey of Income Program Participation, a three-equation, reduced-form econometric model is used to generate estimates revealing that the cost of market child care decreases the labor force participation of married women. High wages increase likelihood of working and use of paid child care. (SK)