Which Ladder to Climb? Decomposing Life Cycle Wage Dynamics

Arbeitspapier

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.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12473

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Factor Income Distribution ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• Thema: life cycle wage growth ; wage inequality ; career ladder

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Bayer, Christian ; Kuhn, Moritz
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2019

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/202819
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ