Early Labor Market Careers of Black, White, and Hispanic Women

这是一项对黑人、白人和西班牙裔女性早期劳动力市场职业生涯的研究。尽管越来越多的基于年轻男性经历的关于从学校到工作的转变的研究产生了一些新的见解，并对以前的结论提出了质疑，但这些新见解中的许多必须有资格解释女性的经历。这个项目的首要目标是查明有助于青年妇女在1980年代和1990年代初实现成熟工作生涯的因素。20世纪80年代在美国经济史上具有独特的意义，因为它代表了不平等加剧和技能回报增加的时期。在过去三十年中，男女的受教育程度趋于一致，在许多人口群体中接近平等。对于年轻人来说，工资的性别差异也在缩小。然而，在20世纪80年代，种族和民族在教育和收入方面的差异仍然存在，对一些群体来说甚至扩大了。这项研究的目的是扩大和重新指导一个正在进行的关于少数民族人口就业经验的研究方案，从目前对男性的关注转向年轻女性的早期工作生涯。这项研究将分析15年来的全国青年纵向调查，这是一项具有全国代表性的纵向调查，其中包括1979年14-21岁的黑人和西班牙裔青年的样本。研究人员将描述黑人、西班牙裔和白人女性在20世纪80年代和90年代初的早期劳动力经历，通过解决三个总体目标：(1)记录年轻女性早期劳动力市场活动的时间、性质和决定因素，并评估早期经验对随后就业和工资的回报；(2)评估青少年就业活动对女青年继续学业决策的影响；(3)记录劳动力市场不稳定的普遍性、性质和决定因素，并评估其对青年时期稳定劳动力市场职业实现运动的影响。在开发必要的经验模型时，研究人员将追求第四个目标，这在本质上更具方法学性，即(4)评估由于选择性排序和未观察到的异质性对学校和工作经验回报的估计而产生的偏差的方向和程度。有待检验的假设表明，早期工作生涯、学校继续决定和后来的成人劳动力市场结果之间存在中等到强烈的联系。特别是，(1)青少年的工作经历可能对青年成年后的结果有持久的影响；(2)在某些情况下（即在校期间每周工作时间过长），青少年就业可能会削弱他们的受教育程度，即使他们积累了工作经验；(3)极端不稳定的青年就业经历，包括频繁访问失业州（而不仅仅是频繁更换工作），减缓了进入稳定就业的速度；(4)男女就业不稳定的特征和后果存在差异。鉴于目前女性劳动力参与率很高，对女性早期职业生涯的研究将极大地有助于我们对美国劳动力市场的理解。该项目是在人力资本倡议确定的至少三个社会背景下的基础研究：教育、工作场所和劣势。因此，它将提供信息，可以改善旨在最大化国家人力资源价值的政策决定。

This is a study of the early labor market careers of black, white, and Hispanic women. Although the growing volume of research about the school-to-work transition based on the experiences of young men has generated several new insights and questioned previous conclusions, many of these new insights will have to be qualified to account for the experiences of women. The overarching objective of this project is to identify the factors conducive to achievement of mature work careers of young women during the 1980s and early 1990s. The 1980s are distinctive in U.S. economic history because they represent a period of rising inequality and increased returns to skills. Educational attainments of men and women have converged during the past three decades and are near parity for many demographic groups. For young adults, gender differences in wages also narrowed. However, race and ethnic differences in education and earnings persisted during the 1980s, and for some groups even widened. This research aims to amplify and re-direct an ongoing program of research on employment experiences of minority populations from its current focus on males toward the early work careers of young women. The study will analyze 15 years of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a nationally representative longitudinal survey which includes oversamples of black and Hispanic youth who were aged 14-21 in 1979. Researchers will characterize the early labor force experiences of black, Hispanic and white women during the 1980s and early 1990s by addressing three general objectives: (1) to document the timing, nature and determinants of young women's early labor market activity, and to evaluate the returns to early experience on subsequent employment and wages; (2) to assess the influence of adolescent employment activity on school continuation decisions of young women; and (3) to document the prevalence, nature, and determinants of labor market instability, and to assess its influence in the achie vement of stable labor market careers during young adulthood. In developing the requisite empirical models, the researchers will pursue a fourth objective that is more methodological in character, namely, (4) to assess the direction and magnitude of bias due to selective sorting and unobserved heterogeneity on the estimates of returns to school and work experience. Hypotheses to be tested suggest that there are moderate to strong linkages between early work careers, school continuation decisions, and later adult labor market outcomes. In particular, (1) adolescent work experiences may have lasting effects on young adult outcomes; (2) under some circumstances (i.e., excessive weekly hours during periods of school enrollment), adolescent employment can truncate educational attainment even as youth accumulate work experience; (3) extremely unstable youth employment experiences that involve frequent visits to jobless states (as opposed to merely frequent job changes) slow the rate of entry to stable employment; and (4) the character and consequences of employment instability differ between men and women. Given the current high levels of women's labor force participation, research on the early careers of women will contribute greatly to our understanding of the American labor market. This project is fundamental research in at least three of the social contexts identified by the Human Capital Initiative: education, workplace, and disadvantage. Thus it will provide information that can improve policy decisions aimed at maximizing the value of the nation's human resources.