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

这是一项关于黑人、白色和西班牙裔妇女早期劳动力市场职业的研究。 虽然越来越多的关于从学校到工作的过渡的研究以青年男子的经历为基础，产生了一些新的见解，并对以前的结论提出了质疑，但这些新的见解中有许多必须加以限定，以说明妇女的经历。 该项目的首要目标是确定1980年代和1990年代初有助于年轻妇女实现成熟职业生涯的因素。 20世纪80年代在美国经济史上具有独特性，因为这是一个不平等加剧和技能回报增加的时期。 在过去30年中，男子和妇女的受教育程度趋于一致，对许多人口群体来说几乎相等。 对于年轻人来说，工资的性别差异也缩小了。 然而，在20世纪80年代，教育和收入方面的种族和民族差异仍然存在，对于某些群体来说甚至有所扩大。 这项研究旨在扩大和重新指导正在进行的少数民族人口就业经验研究计划，从目前的重点放在男性对年轻女性的早期工作生涯。 这项研究将分析15年的全国青年纵向调查，这是一项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过度样本。 研究人员将通过解决三个一般目标来描述20世纪80年代和90年代早期黑人，西班牙裔和白色妇女的早期劳动力经验：（1）记录年轻妇女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年轻女性继续上学决定的影响;（3）记录劳动力市场不稳定的流行程度、性质和决定因素，并评估其对年轻成年期实现稳定的劳动力市场职业的影响。 在开发必要的实证模型时，研究人员将追求第四个目标，该目标在性质上更具方法论性，即：（4）评估由于选择性排序和未观察到的异质性而对学校回报和工作回报的估计造成的偏差的方向和程度。经验。 有待检验的假设表明，早期的工作生涯，继续上学的决定，以及后来的成年劳动力市场的结果之间有中度到强烈的联系。特别是，（1）青少年的工作经历可能对年轻人的结果产生持久的影响;（2）在某些情况下（即，入学期间每周工作时间过长），青少年就业可能缩短受教育程度，即使青年人积累了工作经验;（3）青年人的就业经历极不稳定，经常前往失业国家（而不仅仅是经常更换工作），这降低了进入稳定就业的速度;（4）就业不稳定的性质和后果在男子和妇女之间有所不同。 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大大有助于我们了解美国劳动力市场。 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，以改进旨在最大限度地发挥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.