scholarly journals Anatomy of Lifetime Earnings Inequality: Heterogeneity in Job Ladder Risk vs. Human Capital

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serdar Ozkan ◽  
Jae Song ◽  
Fatih Karahan
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Lifetime Earnings

scholarly journals Human Capital Disparities and Earnings Inequality in The Portuguese Private Labour Market

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derick R. C. Almeida ◽  
João A. S. Andrade ◽  
Adelaide Duarte ◽  
Marta Simões
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Returns To Schooling ◽  
Education Inequality ◽  
Using Data

AbstractThis paper examines human capital inequality and how it relates to earnings inequality in Portugal using data from Quadros de Pessoal for the period 1986–2017. The objective is threefold: (i) show how the distribution of human capital has evolved over time; (ii) investigate the association between human capital inequality and earnings inequality; and (iii) analyse the role of returns to schooling, together with human capital inequality, in the explanation of earnings inequality. Our findings suggest that human capital inequality, computed based on the distribution of average years of schooling of employees working in the Portuguese private labour market, records a positive trend until 2007 and decreases from this year onwards, suggesting the existence of a Kuznets curve of education relating educational attainment levels and education inequality. Based on the decomposition of a Generalized Entropy index (Theil N) for earnings inequality, we observe that inequality in the distribution of human capital plays an important role in the explanation of earnings inequality, although this role has become less important over the last decade. Using Mincerian earnings regressions to estimate the returns to schooling together with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of real hourly earnings we confirm that there are two important forces associated with the observed decrease in earnings inequality: a reduction in education inequality and compressed returns to schooling, mainly in tertiary education.

scholarly journals Culture at Work: Self-Entrepreneurialism and Earnings Inequality in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Moullin
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Working Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Employment Practices ◽  
Capital Theory ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Working Age

Several social theorists describe a culture of self-entrepreneurialism: a subjectivity in which individuals see themselves as determining their objective economic outcomes or earnings. This culture, it is thought, is institutionalized in contemporary employment practices such that, as in human capital theory, self-entrepreneurialism is widespread among employees, and the more self-entrepreneurial earn more. I contribute a quantitative and comprehensive response to these largely untested claims using survey data from the mid-1990s through mid-2010s, representative of working-age Americans. I find individuals’ self-mastery, self-directedness, focus on self-growth and self-foresight of their future forms one general latent reflective self-concept. As a subjectivity, this self-entrepreneurialism is not associated with self-sufficiency or self-flexibility but is high among Americans regardless of social group. In terms of objective earnings, I find self-entrepreneurialism to be associated with an average earnings premium of up to ten percent of average earnings within occupations. However, self-entrepreneurialism does almost nothing to account for enduring earnings inequality between occupations. Further, over individuals’ working life, there is no association between increasing self-entrepreneurialism and increased earnings. Thus, in line with the theory of cultural capital, but not of human capital, self-entrepreneurialism works materially at work.

scholarly journals Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timm P. Boenke ◽  
Giacomo Corneo ◽  
Holger Lüthen
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Lifetime Earnings

Educational Choice, Lifetime Earnings Inequality and Conflicts of Public Policy

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Von Weizsacker
Keyword(s):  
Lifetime Distribution ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Population Heterogeneity ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Educational Choice ◽  
Cycle Model ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Lifetime Earnings ◽  
Earning Inequality

Drawing on and extending the theory of human capital, a comprehensive life-cycle model of individual earnings is designed. The approach taken permits an isolated analysis of three interconnected levels of aggregation (intra-cohort distribution, overall distribution, and lifetime distribution) within the same dynamic microeconomic model of educational choice. In this way, interrelated economic, demographic, and fiscal effects on earning inequality are established. The paper reveals that reallocation reaction of optimizing individuals, combined with population heterogeneity by productive endowments, learning abilities and working age, can destroy simple relationships between the standard of living, current earnings inequality, and public distributional policy.

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