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This study examines the effects of undergraduate financing on subsequent advanced degree attainment in a context characterized by a shift away from traditional grant aid programs and toward widespread student loans. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates, 2SLS Lewbel method regressions estimate the effects of having received undergraduate grant aid and having student loan debt on the chances of attaining an advanced degree during the next ten years. Results suggest a large positive influence of receiving undergraduate grant aid on advanced degree attainment (+8.5%), thus boosting higher education attainment far beyond only an undergraduate degree across college graduation cohorts between 1986 and 2007. Conversely, having loan debt upon college graduation affected the chances of advanced degree attainment negatively. The increased reliance on loans during undergraduate studies coincided with its long-term (or “spillover”) effect on advanced degree attainment being null in the late 1980s to a substantive deficit of more than 4 percentage—points from the 2000s onward. Counterfactual projection models suggest that loan-taking after the 1992 Higher Education Act suppressed the number of advanced degree holders in the US labor market and will continue to do so given current undergraduate financing patterns.

Despite similar educational aspirations, black students persist in higher education at much lower rates than white undergraduates. This paper advances a theoretical explanation for the racial gap in persistence by examining whether the differential attrition in college reflects contrasting incentives for educational persistence. To account for the highly unequal hurdles faced by black men and women in college and in the labor market, we propose a method that addresses race-gender-specific opportunity structures in both institutions simultaneously. This approach is based on forward-looking estimates of outcomes where students draw information from their race-gender reference group ahead of them. The model estimates the earnings payoffs of persistence separately for each race-gender group at three consecutive educational decision nodes: at high school graduation, college entry, and after one year in college. We subsequently apply one version of this model to data from the American Community Surveys (2001–2017), calculating the absolute and relative incentives for educational persistence across racial groups. In addition to large dollar earnings differentials, the analyses reveal striking racial gaps of the relative incentives to stay enrolled: “incentive inequality.” This incentive race gap is largest at the earliest stages of the higher education career—high school graduation and college entry—where the black undergraduate dropout rate is highest. Our findings have substantive and methodological implications for situations where returns to investments are unequal across groups affected by discrimination.

Research suggests that structural change drives occupational mobility in high-income countries over time, but two partially competing theories explain how such change occurs. One suggests that younger cohorts replace older ones through higher education, and the second suggests that individuals adapt to structural change by switching from declining to new or growing occupations during their careers. A proposed occupational scheme aligns with the two dimensions of structural change – skill upgrading on the vertical axis of occupational differentiation, increasing demand for data comprehension (i.e. high skill) and primary tasks concerning either people or things on the horizontal axis. Applied to career trajectories in the Swedish labour market, sequence analyses of the scheme suggest stability in attainment of career mobility types over time between consecutive birth cohorts, and considerable evidence for within-career manoeuvring. Analyses address heterogeneity along parental class and gender.

Drawing the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data, a comprehensive treatment model indicates a strong positive influence of incarceration on premature death risk. Models adjust for numero...

Existing research generally confirms a countercyclical education enrollment, whereby youths seek shelter in the educational system to avoid hardships in the labor market: the “discouraged worker” thesis. Alternatively, the “encouraged worker” thesis predicts that economic downturns steer individuals away from education because of higher opportunity costs. This study provides a formal test of these opposing theories using data from the United States compared with similar sources from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. I investigate whether macroeconomic stimuli—including recessions and youth unemployment fluctuations—matter for enrollment decisions. Analyses rely on 10 years of detailed individual-level panel data, consisting of birth cohorts across several decades. Across data sources, results show enrollment persistence in secondary education is stronger in response to economic downturns. These patterns differ sharply for tertiary-enrolled students and those who recently left higher education. Surprisingly, U.S. youths display an increased hazard of school leaving and a decreased hazard of educational reenrollment in response to adverse conditions. In contrast, European youths tend to make enrollment decisions supportive of discouraged-worker mechanisms or insensitivity to adverse conditions. The U.S.-specific encouraged-worker mechanism might be explained by the relative importance of market forces in one’s early career and the high costs of university attendance, which induces risk aversion with regard to educational investment. The discussion addresses the consequences for educational inequality.

The ORU model has become one of the most accustomed ways to measure the joint impact of required level of education of the job and the education-occupation matching of the worker on their earnings. The broader implications of overeducation and undereducation for socio-economic stratification are however less straightforward. This study contributes to our understanding of the long-term and far-reaching consequences of education-occupation matching by estimating the ORU parameters of parents for the earnings levels of their offspring. After introduction of the “intergenerational ORU model,” we measure associations between parental ORU (overeducation, required education, and undereducation) and earnings among individuals during occupational maturity in the United States (using the NLSY79) and the United Kingdom (using the UKHLS). Results echo findings from the standard ORU model. Years of “matched education-occupation” (R) of the parents’ job increases offspring earnings by about 9.9% (US) and about 8.2% (UK), while years of parents’ “surplus occupation” (U) increases offspring earnings by about 4.0% (US) and about 3.7% (UK). We find a positive effect of “surplus education” (O) in the US, but not the UK. Similar to intergenerational mobility models, parental ORU estimates are moderated by offspring own education yet remain statistically significant. Further analyses explore gender differences in both generations. Implications for ORU research and intergenerational mobility research are discussed.

There is a wide-spread idea that contemporary careers continue to become ever more complex. Pioneering research of full-career complexity has shown that work lives have indeed become more complex, yet at modest increasing pace. This paper examines whether career complexity continues to increase using Swedish registry data across an exceptionally long time period, including younger cohorts than in previous research: up to those born in 1983. The full early- and midcareers of selected birth cohorts cover several macroeconomic booms and downturns, a long period of upskilling of the Swedish labor force, as well as the convergence of working hours of women and men. The following conclusions are drawn using state-of-the-art methods of measuring career complexity. For early-careers, an increasing complexity trend is evident between the 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts, yet complexity fluctuates around a stable trend for the 1970s birth cohorts and onward. For mid-careers, which are considerably more stable on average, complexity has decreased among women born between the 1930s and the early-1950s. However, the opposite trend holds true for men, resulting in gender convergence of complexity. We observe a standstill of the mid-career complexity trend across both genders, followed by a modest decline for the last observed cohorts. Subsequent analyses point to educational expansion as an important driver of the initial increase of early-career complexity. Taken together, our analysis affirms an initial shift to more career complexity in the 20th century, yet we find no unidirectional trend toward more career complexity over the last decades.

BACKGROUND Contact tracing apps are considered useful means to monitor SARS-CoV-2 infections during the off-peak stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their effectiveness is, however, dependent on the uptake of such COVID-19 apps. OBJECTIVE We examined the role of individuals’ general health status in their willingness to use a COVID-19 tracing app as well as the roles of socioeconomic characteristics and COVID-19 proximity. METHODS We drew data from the WageIndicator Foundation Living and Working in Coronavirus Times survey. The survey collected data on labor market status as well as the potential confounders of the relationship between general health and COVID-19 tracing app usage, such as sociodemographics and regular smartphone usage data. The survey also contained information that allowed us to examine the role of COVID-19 proximity, such as whether an individual has contracted SARS-CoV-2, whether an individual has family members and colleagues with COVID-19, and whether an individual exhibits COVID-19 pandemic–induced depressive and anxiety symptoms. We selected data that were collected in Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands from individuals aged between 18 and 70 years (N=4504). Logistic regressions were used to measure individuals’ willingness to use a COVID-19 tracing app. RESULTS We found that the influence that socioeconomic factors have on COVID-19 tracing app usage varied dramatically between the four countries, although individuals experiencing forms of not being employed (ie, recent job loss and inactivity) consistently had a lower willingness to use a contact tracing app (effect size: 24.6%) compared to that of employees (effect size: 33.4%; PP CONCLUSIONS Current public health policies aim to promote the use of smartphone-based contact tracing apps during the off-peak periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. Campaigns that emphasize the health benefits of COVID-19 tracing apps may contribute the most to the uptake of such apps. Public health campaigns that rely on digital platforms would also benefit from seriously considering the country-specific distribution of privacy concerns.

The COVID-19 economic crash is idiosyncratic because of its virtual standstill of economic activity. We therefore ask how individual labor market experiences are related to the development of mental health complaints in the spring of 2020. As clinical data collection was compromised during the lockdowns, standardized surveys of the European labor force provide an opportunity to observe mental health complaints as the crisis unfolded. Data are representative of active members of the labor force of six European nations that contained varying levels of COVID-19 burdens in terms of mortality and lockdown measures. We document a steep occupational prestige level gradient on the probability of facing economic hardship during the lockdowns-looming job loss, income loss, and workload decline-which evidently exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities. Analyses indicate a striking positive relationship between instantaneous economic hardships during the COVID-19 lockdown and expressing feelings of depression and health anxiety. Importantly, the magnitude of the association between such hardships and indicators of mental health deterioration is highly dependent on workers' occupational standing, revealing a second layer of exacerbating inequality.

Education is considered a key driver of intergenerational social mobility in the United States. However, the past several decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the costs of college attendance, which puts political pressure on what the roles of government and families in education financing ought to be. In this study, we examine how individuals' perception of society's intergenerational mobility affects their willingness to financially support children in college, as well as their opinion on whether the government should take a smaller or bigger role. Perceptions of mobility matter because they reflect individuals' estimated opportunity structure and thereby an important component of returns to education. Using data from a nationally representative online survey and a novel design to measure perceived mobility, we show that (1) individuals who believe to live in a more mobile society exhibit more aversion toward government spending and a preference for students relying on family support; (2) these associations are stronger among higher-SES groups; and (3) information treatments randomly assigning objective social mobility facts make individuals who overestimate the level of social mobility even more eager to contribute to tuition costs. These findings suggest that learning about factual levels of mobility reinforces existing beliefs and possibly their consequences for educational investment.

Although right-wing nationalist Geert Wilders—party leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands—did not receive the most votes in the 2017 parliamentary elections, it is questionable whether this result really marks a retreat of nationalist and xenophobic politics. In the months leading up the elections in March of 2017, polls had indicated a potential victory of Wilders’ party with a margin as big as 8 percent to its nearest rivals in January of the same year. As argued in this essay, the turnaround in the 2 months preceding the elections, in favor of the Liberal Conservatives and the Christian Democrats, has been falsely considered a push-back from the political center. Instead, the traditional centrist parties have slowly adopted Wilders’ position on Islam, Muslim-Dutchmen, immigration, refugees, and the EU. This essay makes the case for mainstreaming of the far-right ideology.

Studies relating the selectivity of colleges to the earnings of their graduates report inconsistent findings. Some find no effects; most report statistically significant but quite small earnings benefits from attending a more selective college; and a few studies report large effects. Analyzing two recent national longitudinal studies of college graduates, with models sensitive to selection bias, we find large earnings payoffs from attending a highly selective college both four and ten years after graduation. However, those returns are uneven: full-time working women graduates earn a lot less than their male counterparts from equivalent colleges, college majors pay differently, and family background also affects earnings over and above one's college's selectivity. Nevertheless, earnings differences attributable to college selectivity are striking.

Numerous studies have investigated the consequences of vertical transfer on students’ higher education outcomes in comparison to “native 4-year students”—those who went straight from high school into a bachelor’s program. However, the long-term labor market outcomes for vertical transfer students are understudied. Using nationally-representative data from the National Survey of College Graduates 2015, we estimate the relationship between starting in a community college (vs. at a 4-year college) and postcollege earnings and employment, in ways that correct for selection bias and overdispersion. We estimate a roughly 14% earnings disadvantage for baccalaureates who started at a 2-year rather than 4-year institution, regardless of college major. No effect was found on graduates’ employment chances.

Higher education in America is characterized by widespread access to college but low rates of completion, especially among undergraduates at less selective institutions. We analyze longitudinal transcript data to examine processes leading to graduation, using Hidden Markov modeling. We identify several latent states that are associated with patterns of course taking, and show that a trained Hidden Markov model can predict graduation or nongraduation based on only a few semesters of transcript data. We compare this approach to more conventional methods and conclude that certain college-specific processes, associated with graduation, should be analyzed in addition to socio-economic factors. The results from the Hidden Markov trajectories indicate that both graduating and nongraduating students take the more difficult mathematical and technical courses at an equal rate. However, undergraduates who complete their bachelor’s degree within 6 years are more likely to alternate between these semesters with a heavy course load and the less course-intense semesters. The course-taking patterns found among college students also indicate that nongraduates withdraw more often from coursework than average, yet when graduates withdraw, they tend do so in exactly those semesters of the college career in which more difficult courses are taken. These findings, as well as the sequence methodology itself, emphasize the importance of careful course selection and counseling early on in student’s college career.

Increasingly, undergraduates take more than 4 years to complete a baccalaureate, a situation widely perceived as a waste of time and money, for students, their families, and taxpayers. We first identify several phenomena that result in a longer time to degree and document the frequency of such delays. Then, using nationally representative data from the Baccalaureate & Beyond 1993–2003 surveys, we estimate the relationship between delayed time-to-degree and later employment and postcollege earnings, using negative binomial hurdle models. We find that delayed time-to-degree is not related to employment chances but is associated with lower post-college earnings: averaging 8–15%, depending on the length of delay. This average disadvantage is in line with signaling theory. The unique contribution of this study is its thorough analysis of different types of delay, as caused by stopping out and employment. Contrary to the popular assumption that delay is a waste of college resources or a student’s time, we find that delayed graduation in combination with working full-time during college has no negative relationship to post-college earnings. We discuss the time-investment trade-offs and the implications for the applicability of human capital theory to college graduation delays.

Research on job precarity and job instability have largely neglected the labor market trajectories in which these employment and non-employment situations are experienced. This study addresses the mechanisms of volatility and precarity in observed work histories of labor market entrants using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997. Several ideal-typical post-education pathways are modeled for respondents entering the labor force between 1997 and 2010, with varying indicators and degrees of precarity. A series of predictive models indicate that women, racial-ethnic minorities, and lower social class labor market entrants are significantly more likely to be exposed to the most precarious early careers. Moreover, leaving the educational system with a completed associate’s, bachelor’s, or post-graduate degree is protective of experiencing the most unstable types of career pattern. While adjusting for these individual-level background and education variables, the findings also reveal a form of “scarring” as regional unemployment level is a significant macro-economic predictor of experiencing a more hostile and turbulent early career. These pathways lead to considerable earnings penalties 5 years after labor market entry.