...a 10% increase in the number of people with a four-year degree in a given metro area was associated with a two-percentage-point rise in the overall employment rate from 1980 to 2000.
The benefit was particularly large for women with a high-school diploma or less. "The results are consistent," the author writes, "with the hypothesis that individuals accumulate greater skills from working in labor markets" alongside highly educated and trained workers.
Week in Ideas: Daniel Akst
December 28, 2012, 8:38 p.m. ET
paper:
"Human Capital Externalities and Employment Differences Across Metropolitan Areas of the USA," John V. Winters, Journal of Economic Geography (Dec. 10)
More college graduates also means that employers can require a college degree for jobs that don't require it. Lots of "administrative assistants" in 2012 have college degrees and are doing work that is similar to what "secretaries" did in 1962 with only high school diplomas.
ReplyDeleteright ---- but this study is talking about wages for people without college degrees ---- how does that factor in to what you're saying?
ReplyDeletebtw, I find this idea quite interesting (and I'm inclined to believe the findings are correct .... don't we also see higher salaries in general in places where you have concentrations of college-educated folk?)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the mechanism --- also about the finding that it applies more to women than to men---