Long Term Determinants of Income: Early Career Choices and Their Effect on Future Income

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Dickerson, B. (2014). Long Term Determinants of Income: Early Career Choices and Their Effect on Future Income. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how early career decisions by young adults can affect their long term career outcomes, specifically income twenty years in the future. Previous research dedicated to this area looked at short-term effects. Data was gathered from the NLSY79, which followed young adults from 1979, when each individual was between 14 and 22, through 2010. This was used to create a log-linear OLS model that contained regressors of income, unemployment, educational attainment, intelligence, gender, and race demographics.The results showed that income, unemployment, educational attainment, and intelligence each had a statistically significant effect on income as far out as twenty years. A one hundred dollar increase in income is associated with income twenty years out by a .147% increase. A week-spent unemployed is associated with 0.813% decrease in income twenty years later. Educational attainment results suggest that an additional year of education is associated with a 6.28% increase in income and a one percent increase in AFQT percentile is associated with a .715% increase in income twenty years out. Income, education, and intelligence results held significance at a 0.001 level while unemployment held significance at a 0.05 level.

Details
Author

Dickerson, Brian

Title

Long Term Determinants of Income: Early Career Choices and Their Effect on Future Income

Physical Description

1 online resource (49 pages) : PDF

Date

2014

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how early career decisions by young adults can affect their long term career outcomes, specifically income twenty years in the future. Previous research dedicated to this area looked at short-term effects. Data was gathered from the NLSY79, which followed young adults from 1979, when each individual was between 14 and 22, through 2010. This was used to create a log-linear OLS model that contained regressors of income, unemployment, educational attainment, intelligence, gender, and race demographics.The results showed that income, unemployment, educational attainment, and intelligence each had a statistically significant effect on income as far out as twenty years. A one hundred dollar increase in income is associated with income twenty years out by a .147% increase. A week-spent unemployed is associated with 0.813% decrease in income twenty years later. Educational attainment results suggest that an additional year of education is associated with a 6.28% increase in income and a one percent increase in AFQT percentile is associated with a .715% increase in income twenty years out. Income, education, and intelligence results held significance at a 0.001 level while unemployment held significance at a 0.05 level.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Economics

Degree

M.S.

Subject Area

Economics

Advisor(s)

Lin, Hwan

Committee Members

Gaggl, Paul
Schulkind, Lisa

Degree Note

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2014.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Dickerson_uncc_0694N_10670

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:768