Estimating historical wage profiles
(2015) In Historical Methods 48(1). p.35-51- Abstract
- In this article, researchers evaluate the empirical performance of the Mincer earnings equation, which has been the benchmark model for assessment of wage profiles since 1974. The analysis concerns workers in the manufacturing industry in three countries before 1900. The Mincer equation must be adjusted with respect to functional form in order to capture the wage profiles of past industrial workers. The quadratic spline consistently provides the best fit, while the standard quadratic produces misleading estimates of wage changes and gender wage gaps. These conclusions hold across contexts, for men and women, and for both age and experience profiles. The results have methodological relevance for estimating historical wage profiles and also... (More)
- In this article, researchers evaluate the empirical performance of the Mincer earnings equation, which has been the benchmark model for assessment of wage profiles since 1974. The analysis concerns workers in the manufacturing industry in three countries before 1900. The Mincer equation must be adjusted with respect to functional form in order to capture the wage profiles of past industrial workers. The quadratic spline consistently provides the best fit, while the standard quadratic produces misleading estimates of wage changes and gender wage gaps. These conclusions hold across contexts, for men and women, and for both age and experience profiles. The results have methodological relevance for estimating historical wage profiles and also have implications for the assessment of gender wage gaps in the past. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4986366
- author
- Stanfors, Maria LU and Burnette, Joyce LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2015
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- manufacturing industry, Mincer earnings function, nineteenth century, wage profiles
- in
- Historical Methods
- volume
- 48
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 35 - 51
- publisher
- Heldref Publications
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000348840100003
- scopus:84921740964
- ISSN
- 0161-5440
- DOI
- 10.1080/01615440.2014.947397
- project
- The Emergence of Wage Discrimination
- The Emergence of Wage Discrimination: Gender wage differentials before the modern labor market (IFAU)
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- cd73d51a-1783-497e-9c80-3083d36df17f (old id 4986366)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:11:35
- date last changed
- 2022-07-28 20:49:54
@article{cd73d51a-1783-497e-9c80-3083d36df17f,
abstract = {{In this article, researchers evaluate the empirical performance of the Mincer earnings equation, which has been the benchmark model for assessment of wage profiles since 1974. The analysis concerns workers in the manufacturing industry in three countries before 1900. The Mincer equation must be adjusted with respect to functional form in order to capture the wage profiles of past industrial workers. The quadratic spline consistently provides the best fit, while the standard quadratic produces misleading estimates of wage changes and gender wage gaps. These conclusions hold across contexts, for men and women, and for both age and experience profiles. The results have methodological relevance for estimating historical wage profiles and also have implications for the assessment of gender wage gaps in the past.}},
author = {{Stanfors, Maria and Burnette, Joyce}},
issn = {{0161-5440}},
keywords = {{manufacturing industry; Mincer earnings function; nineteenth century; wage profiles}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{35--51}},
publisher = {{Heldref Publications}},
series = {{Historical Methods}},
title = {{Estimating historical wage profiles}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2014.947397}},
doi = {{10.1080/01615440.2014.947397}},
volume = {{48}},
year = {{2015}},
}