IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v60y2000i03p782-818_02.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Goldin, Claudia
  • Katz, Lawrence F.

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldin, Claudia & Katz, Lawrence F., 2000. "Education and Income in the Early Twentieth Century: Evidence from the Prairies," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 782-818, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:60:y:2000:i:03:p:782-818_02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700025766/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1995. "The Decline of Non-Competing Groups: Changes in the Premium to Education, 1890 to 1940," NBER Working Papers 5202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francisco Rodríguez, 2004. "Inequality, Redistribution, And Rent‐Seeking," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 287-320, November.
    2. Koh, Youngsun, 2018. "The Evolution of Wage Inequality in Korea," KDI Policy Studies 2018-01, Korea Development Institute (KDI).
    3. Michaels, Guy, 2007. "The division of labor, coordination, and the demand for information processing," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3251, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 693-732.
    5. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1999. "Education and Income in the Early 20th Century: Evidence from the Prairies," NBER Working Papers 7217, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Joseph P. Kaboski & Trevon D. Logan, 2011. "Factor Endowments and the Returns to Skill: New Evidence from the American Past," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 111-152.
    7. Dennis J. Snower, 1998. "Causes of changing earnings inequality," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 69-133.
    8. Brant Abbott & Giovanni Gallipoli, 2017. "Human Capital Spillovers and the Geography of Intergenerational Mobility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 25, pages 208-233, April.
    9. Frey, Carl Benedikt & Osborne, Michael A., 2017. "The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 254-280.
    10. Vitaliy Strohush & Justin Wanner, 2015. "College Degree for Everyone?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 21(3), pages 261-273, August.
    11. Berger, Thor & Frey, Carl Benedikt, 2016. "Did the Computer Revolution shift the fortunes of U.S. cities? Technology shocks and the geography of new jobs," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 38-45.
    12. Claudia Goldin, 1999. "Egalitarianism and the Returns to Education during the Great Transformation of American Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 65-94, December.
    13. Saleh, Mohamed, 2012. "The Reluctant Transformation: Modernization, Religion, and Human Capital in Nineteenth Century Egypt," TSE Working Papers 13-434, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    14. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    15. Peter Cappelli & William H. Carter, 2000. "Computers, Work Organization, and Wage Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 7987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Marina Adshade, 2012. "Female labour force participation in an era of organizational and technological change," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1188-1219, August.
    17. Robert A. Margo, 1999. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1820 to 1970," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_286, Levy Economics Institute.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:60:y:2000:i:03:p:782-818_02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.