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Are There Returns to the Wages of Young Men from Working While in School?

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Author Info
V. Joseph Hotz
Lixin Xu
Marta Tienda
Avner Ahituv

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Abstract

This paper examines the impacts of work experience acquired while youth were in high school (and college) on young men’s wage rates during the 1980s and 1990s. Previous studies have found evidence of sizeable and persistent rates of return to working while enrolled in school, especially high school, on subsequent wage growth. Such findings may represent causal effects of having acquired work experience while still enrolled in school, but they may also be the result of failure to fully account for individual differences in young adults’ capacities to acquire such skills and be productive in the work force later in life. We reexamine the robustness of previous attempts to control for unobserved heterogeneity and selectivity. We explore more general methods for dealing with dynamic forms of selection by explicitly modeling the educational and work choices of young men from age 13 through their late twenties. Using data on young men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, (NLSY79), we find that the estimated returns to working while in high school or college are dramatically diminished in magnitude and statistical significance when one uses these dynamic selection methods. As such, our results indicate a decided lack of robustness to the inference about the effects of working while in school that has been drawn from previous work.

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Paper provided by Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research in its series JCPR Working Papers with number 101.

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Date of creation: 01 Jul 1999
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Handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:101

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Avner Ahituv & Marta Tienda & Lixin Xu & V. Joseph Hotz, . "Initial Labor Market Experiences of Black, Hispanic and White Men," University of Chicago - Population Research Center 94-5, Chicago - Population Research Center.
  2. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Daniel R. Sherman, 1987. "Employment While in College, Academic Achievement and Post-College Outcomes: A Summary of Results," NBER Working Papers 1742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Richard B. Freeman & David A. Wise, 1982. "The Youth Labor Market Problem: Its Nature, Causes, and Consequences," NBER Reprints 0308, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1994. "The Solution and Estimation of Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Models by Simulation and Interpolation: Monte Carlo Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(4), pages 648-72, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Stephen V. Cameron & James J. Heckman, 1998. "Life Cycle Schooling and Dynamic Selection Bias: Models and Evidence for Five Cohorts of American Males," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(2), pages 262-333, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-94, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. James J. Heckman, 1982. "Heterogeneity and State Dependence," NBER Reprints 0298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. James J. Heckman & Christopher J. Flinn, 1982. "New Methods for Analyzing Structural Models of Labor Force Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 0856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Card, David, 1999. "The causal effect of education on earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1801-1863 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Lisa M. Lynch, 1986. "The Youth Labor Market in the 80s: Determinants of Re-Employment Probabilities for Young Men and Women," NBER Working Papers 2021, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Cameron, Stephen V & Heckman, James J, 1993. "The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(1), pages 1-47, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Christopher J. Flinn & James J. Heckman, 1982. "Models for the Analysis of Labor Force Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 0857, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. James J. Heckman, 1989. "Choosing Among Alternative Nonexperimental Methods for Estimating the Impact of Social Programs: The Case of Manpower Training," NBER Working Papers 2861, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Hotz, V Joseph & Robert A. Miller & Seth Sanders & Jeffrey Smith, 1994. "A Simulation Estimator for Dynamic Models of Discrete Choice," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 61(2), pages 265-89, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Stephenson, Stanley P, Jr, 1981. "In-School Labour Force Status and Post-School Wage Rates of Young Men," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 279-302, September.
  17. Ruhm, Christopher J, 1997. "Is High School Employment Consumption or Investment?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(4), pages 735-76, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Todd R. Stinebrickner & Ralph Stinebrickner, 2000. "Working During School and Academic Performance," UWO Department of Economics Working Papers 20009, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Häkkinen, Iida, 2004. "Working while enrolled in a university: Does it pay?," Working Paper Series 2004:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Christian Dustmann & Arthur Soest, 2007. "Part-time work, school success and school leaving," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 277-299, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Ahituv, Avner & Lerman, Robert, 2005. "Job Turnover, Wage Rates, and Marital Stability: How Are They Related?," IZA Discussion Papers 1470, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  5. Corrado Andini & Pedro Telhado Pereira, 2007. "Full-time Schooling, Part-time Schooling, and Wages: Returns and Risks in Portugal," IZA Discussion Papers 2651, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  6. Holmlund, Bertil & Liu, Qian & Nordström Skans, Oskar, 2006. "Mind the Gap? Estimating the Effects of Postponing Higher Education," Working Paper Series 2006:17, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Dustmann, Christian & Micklewright, John & van Soest, Arthur, 2004. "In-School Work Experience, Parental Allowances, and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 1235, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  8. Lingxin Hao & Nan M. Astone & Andrew Cherlin, 2001. "Adolescents' School Enrollment and Employment:Effect of State Welfare Policies," JCPR Working Papers 232, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. [Downloadable!]
  9. Avner Ahituv & Robert I. Lerman, 2005. "How Do Marital Status, Wage Rates, and Work Commitment Interact?," IZA Discussion Papers 1688, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  10. Kalenkoski, Charlene Marie & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2008. "Parental Transfers, Student Achievement, and the Labor Supply of College Students," Working Papers 416, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  11. Kalenkoski, Charlene Marie & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2004. "Parental Transfers, Student Achievement, and the Labor Supply of College Students," Working Papers 374, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Kalenkoski, Charlene Marie & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2006. "Parental Transfers, Student Achievement, and the Labor Supply of College Students," Working Papers 401, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  13. Kalenkoski, Charlene Marie & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2005. "Parental Transfers, Student Achievement, and the Labor Supply of College Students," Working Papers 387, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  14. Marigee Bacolod & V. Joseph Hotz, 2005. "Cohort Changes in the Transition from School to Work: What Changed and What Consequences Did it have for Wages?," Working Papers 050618, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  15. Kooreman, Peter, 2005. "The Persistent Segregation of Girls into Lower-Paying Jobs while in School," IZA Discussion Papers 1535, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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