Educational Attainment and Cohort Size

David C Stapleton and Douglas J Young

Journal of Labor Economics, 1988, vol. 6, issue 3, 330-61

Abstract: The authors argue that the postwar baby boom caused substantial fluctuations in both the economic rewards to education and educational attainment over the last three decades. If substitutability between young and old workers diminishes with education, the present value of lifetime earnings for a boom cohort is depressed more for highly educated workers, reducing incentives for educational attainment. The opposite is true for pre- and postboom cohorts. The diminishing substitutability hypothesis explains the declines in both the returns to college and college completion rates in the 1970s, and predicts a substantial increase in educational attainment for post boomers. Copyright 1988 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1988
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/298186 full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE for details.

Related works:
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:ucp:jlabec:v:6:y:1988:i:3:p:330-61

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().