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Are Lots of College Graduates Taking High School Jobs? A Reconsiderationof the Evidence

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Author Info
John Tyler
Richard J. Murnane
Frank Levy

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Abstract

Several recent published papers have asserted that a growing proportion of workers with college degrees are either unemployed or employed in jobs requiring only high school skills. Using data from the 1980 and 1990 Censuses of Population and Housing, we show that this assertion does not accurately reflect labor market trends for young (25-34 year old) male or female college graduates or for older (45-54 year old) female college graduates. For all these groups, real earnings increased during the 1980s and the percentage in 'high school jobs' declined. The assertion is valid only for older male college graduates. Young college graduates improved their labor market position during the 1980s by increasingly obtaining degrees in occupations which had high earnings at the beginning of the decade and which had the highest earnings growth over the decade.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5127.

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Date of creation: May 1995
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5127

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J - Labor and Demographic Economics

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  1. Berg, Gerard J. van den & Gautier, Pieter A. & Ours, Jan C., 1998. "Worker turnover at the firm level and crowding out of lower educated workers," Serie Research Memoranda 0049, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. James Vickery, 1999. "Unemployment and Skills in Australia," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp1999-12, Reserve Bank of Australia. [Downloadable!]
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