Arbeitspapier
Which Ladder to Climb? Decomposing Life Cycle Wage Dynamics
Wages grow and become more unequal as workers age. Economic theory focuses on worker investment in human capital, search for employers, and residual wage shocks to account for these life cycle wage dynamics. We highlight the importance of jobs: collections of tasks and duties defined by employers within the production process. We provide empirical evidence that climbing the career ladder toward jobs characterized by more responsibility, complexity, and autonomy accounts for the largest part of life cycle wage dynamics. It accounts for 50% of average wage growth, 50% of rising differences between gender, and virtually all of rising dispersion within gender over the life cycle.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12473
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Factor Income Distribution
Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
- Subject
-
life cycle wage growth
wage inequality
career ladder
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Bayer, Christian
Kuhn, Moritz
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
- (where)
-
Bonn
- (when)
-
2019
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Bayer, Christian
- Kuhn, Moritz
- Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2019
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