This paper documents the substantial decline in the economic position of less-skilled American males that has occurred since the early 1970's. The paper also explores a variety of potential explanations for the widening of earnings differentials between more- and less-educated white males. On...

We examine the detailed structure of family income inequality in the United States, Canada, and Australia at various points during the 1980s. In each of these countries we find that income inequality increased among married couple families and that the increases are closely associated with...

This paper attempts to measure and explain recent changes in the distributions of family income in Canada and the U.S. using comparable micro-data for the two countries for 1979 and 1987. Three main sets of conclusions are reached. First, the distributions of total family income (pre-tax,...

Women who have first births relatively late in life earn higher wages. This paper offers an explanation of this fact based on a staple life-cycle model of human capital investment and timing of first birth. The model yields conditions (that are plausibly satisfied) under which late childbearers...

This paper explores the relationship between technological change and inequality in the U.S. since the late 1960's. The analysis focuses primarily on studying patterns and trends in the dispersion of various distributions of earnings and income during this recent period of rapid technological...

This study documents the 1980s fall in pension coverage and shows that it was concentrated most heavily on men, especially on the young and less educated. We find evidence that changes in real earnings and deunionization account for a sizeable portion of the fall in pension coverage. By...

This paper examines the relationship between population growth and economic growth in developing countries from 1965 to 1985. Our results indicate that developing countries were able to shift their labor force from low-productivity agriculture to the higher-productivity industry and service...

The economies of the less developed countries are about to face perhaps the greatest challenge in their histories: generating a sufficient number of jobs at reasonable wages to absorb their rapidly growing populations into productive employment. In terms of absolute magnitude, this challenge has...

This paper attempts to distinguish between two alternative views of the labor market problems faced by young workers in a number of industrialized countries in the 1970s and early 1980s. The first view is that the low relative earnings and high unemployment rates experienced by these workers...

We examine evidence on omitted-ability bias in estimates of the economic return to schooling, using proxies for unobserved ability. We consider measurement error in these ability proxies and the potential endogeneity of both experience and schooling, and examine wages at labor market entry and...