High School Preparation and Early Labor Force Experience

Robert H. Meyer and David Wise ()

No 342, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The relationship between high school training and work experience on the one hand and early labor force experience on the other are analyzed in the paper. In addition, the extent and nature of the persistence of early labor force experience is evaluated. The study is based on data for male youths from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. While there appears to be no relationship between job-related training in high school and post-graduation weeks worked or wage rates, there is a strong relationship between hours worked while in high school and both weeks worked and wage rates in the first four years after graduation. High school class rank and test scores also are positively related to early weeks worked and wage rates in the labor force. It is also found that after controlling for individual specific characteristics of youth, there is little relationship between weeks worked in the first year after high school graduation and weeks worked four years later. And there is almost no relationship between initial wage rates and wage rates four years later, other than those attributable to measured and unmeasured individual specific characteristics. There is little persistence of early experience that cannot be attributed to heterogeneity among youth. There is, however, an effect of early work experience on later wage rates, although it is of modest magnitude in this sample of high school graduates.

Date: 1979-05
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as Meyer, Robert H. and Wise, David A. "High School Preparation and Early Labor Force Experience." The Youth Labor Market Problem: Its Nature, Causes and Consequences, edited by Richard B. Freeman and David A. Wise, pp. 277-34 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Published as High School Preparation and Early Labor Force Experience , Robert H. Meyer, David A. Wise. in The Youth Labor Market Problem: Its Nature, Causes, and Consequences , Freeman and Wise. 1982

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0342.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: High School Preparation and Early Labor Force Experience (1982)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0342

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0342

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().